


So He Won't Break

by drunkkenobi



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Sexy Shame, Sharing a Bed, Wet Dream, accidental boners lead to real feelings, extremely cheesy epilogue, sleep issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-07-23 10:30:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16157222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drunkkenobi/pseuds/drunkkenobi
Summary: Shane breaks his ankle and needs help so Ryan offers to stay with him. Lots of hurt/comfort with a side of broken ankle related hijinks and a nice helping of mutual pining.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First, big thank you to [angelsaves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsaves) for some EMT-related answers and to [beethechange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beethechange/pseuds/beethechange) for the extremely helpful beta!
> 
> I got into BFU this summer while recovering from my own broken ankle so I tried to make this as accurate as possible while also not getting too in the weeds with medical stuff. For the squeamish, all of the injury stuff as in the first chapter, but it's not super detailed either. And on a different note, Ryan has some sexuality anxiety in this, but it's not self-hating, more just confusion.
> 
> Vague spoilers for Mission: Impossible Fallout and season 7 of Great British Bake-Off. And the place they investigate isn't real.
> 
> title from the Black Keys song of the same name.

July 14, 2018. 12:27am. Historic Silver Dollar Hotel.

“So, who is supposed to be up here?”

“The reports are of an old cowboy who was killed in his sleep while he was staying here. He’s even been seen wearing a cowboy hat.”

“Are we sure people are actually seeing a ghost and not just some old guy who bought a souvenir hat?”

“I mean, when it’s at night like this and no one else is supposed to be here...I really doubt it.”

Shane peered into one of the open hotel rooms, shining his flashlight on the darkened corners of the recreated 19th century bedroom set. “You sure? Someone could be hiding under one of these beds, waiting for everyone to leave so he could explore the hotel on his own.”

“What, like the robbers from Home Alone 2 who stay in the toy store?”

“Yeah! And then some ghost hunter sees him and thinks it’s paranormal, and nope. Just some guy.”

Ryan wheezed, pushing past him to get inside the hotel room. “I love that you think that’s more likely than a ghost of someone who was murdered here.”

“Ryan, literally everything is more likely than ghosts.”

“Says the ghost hunter.”

“Stop reminding me.”

They shared a laugh before Ryan went into a little spiel about how this particular cowboy had been shot dead in this very room over 150 years ago. Shane was only half-paying attention, distracted by the godawful period recreations the owners had done in this room (plastic drawer handles? Really?) when he felt a cool breeze dance across his fingers. AC must have kicked on, thank God. Why Ryan decided they should go investigate a hotel in Nevada in July really was beyond comprehension; the dry heat had been slowly sucking all of the sweat out of him all day and into the night. At least in LA you’d get a nice ocean breeze every once in awhile. This was just dry, dead air that suffocated you the moment you stepped into it.

“Whoa, did you feel that?” Ryan asked, staring wide eyed down at his arm. “I just got chills.”

“Yeah, it’s called the air conditioning.”

“I don’t think there’s AC here.”

“Ryan, it’s Nevada. Everywhere has AC.”

By the look on Ryan’s face, Shane had not convinced him, which was par for the course. Oh well, _he_ wasn’t about to look silly on camera for thinking man’s greatest modern invention was actually some old cowboy ghoul. Chalk up another win for the Shaniacs.

They roamed in and out of a few more rooms, Ryan chattering about air temperature and Shane cracking jokes about ghost cowboys and their ghost horses. All in all, it was wrapping up to be a pretty low-key night, even by Shane’s standards. He knew the episodes where one of them lost their minds were more popular, but it was good to have these kind, too. Helped prove Shane right, after all.

“So, we’ve got the basement, and that’s it?” he asked Ryan as they were about to head downstairs to the first floor.

“Yeah, and most of it’s off-limits so it shouldn’t take long. But a lady was killed down there, so it’s fucked up, too.”

“Short and fucked up, just like you,” Shane smirked.

“Hilarious.”

“Alright guys, whenever you’re ready!” TJ shouted from the bottom of the stairs, where he and the rest of the crew were ready to film them for some B-roll.

“After you,” Shane said, motioning to the stairs.

With a nod, Ryan went down first, wiping sweat off his brow as he went. The air conditioning hadn’t stayed on long and it was sweltering again.

As Shane went to take his first step down the stairs, a cool breeze passed over him again, against the small of his back. Automatically he twisted his neck around to see where it came from, but his leg was still stepping forward onto stairs made for feet four sizes smaller than his. His shoe missed the step. Everything after that was a blur.

He remembered trying to grab the railing but his palms were slick with sweat and the bannister was lower than what he was accustomed to and he couldn’t get a grip on it. He remembered yelling “SHIT!” He remembered someone else yelling “FUCK!”

He didn’t remember how he ended up on his back with his head further down the stairs than the rest of him, but it’s where he was when his mind caught up with him.

“Holy shit, are you okay?” Ryan asked, eyes wide and worried, his breath coming in short bursts as he hovered over Shane.

“Peachy,” Shane mumbled. “Just fell down the stairs like I was fourteen again, _and_ on camera. Everything is great.”

“Can you sit up?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little banged up,” he said, using the rungs of the bannister to pull himself up. It was deeply uncomfortable and awkward, his legs still pointed to the top of the stairs, but he did it. Now he just had to pivot around so he could stand properly and come up with some witty remark to save his dignity.

Pivoting went okay, even though he had to scrunch his knees up really tight to not hit the wall as he turned around. All he had to do was just stand up and crack a joke and move on.

But standing did not go okay.

“Shit!” he hissed the second he tried to put even a modicum of weight on his left foot, immediately having to lower himself back down.

“Need some help?” Ryan offered, holding out his hand.

“Thanks,” Shane said, wrapping his hand around Ryan’s forearm. He was probably overly sensitive right now, his body coming down from the adrenaline spike or something. With Ryan’s considerable strength, he could pull himself up now, right?

Pain shot through his ankle like a lightning bolt and, again, he had to sit back down. Ah, fuck. Had he really sprained his ankle? This was not how he envisioned getting exciting footage for the night.

Bending his left knee, Shane pulled his foot towards him to investigate it for himself. He could move his toes inside his favorite Adidas sneakers (the red pair). That was good right?

“Are you okay?” Ryan asked again, quieter this time.

“I don’t know. I think maybe I sprained it? Or bruised it really badly, at least.”

Shane kept touching at his ankle, trying to tell if and where something felt different, felt off. There were some painful spots, but he assumed that was just from bruising. It mostly just felt _weird_. Like this wasn’t his ankle, that it didn’t belong to him.

Ryan squatted down next to him. “Can you take your shoe and sock off?”

“I’m not going to be barefoot in this disgusting tourist trap.”

“ _Shane_ ,” Ryan said with zero patience and a hundred percent concern.

“Fine.”

Shane undid his laces and began to pull the sneaker off. He gritted his teeth, knowing that it was going to hurt, and he was right. A brief pulse of white hot pain shot through him, causing him to gasp. Ryan curled his hand around Shane’s shoulder and that steadied him enough to ease the shoe off all the way.

By now, TJ was on the stairs with them, shining a flashlight on Shane’s foot while he worked the sock off. This was slightly easier than the shoe, since he could keep it motionless while he slid it off but there were still strange little shots of pain every time his ankle wriggled. Shane held it firm with his left hand as it rested across his right knee.

“No bruising, yet. That’s good, I think?” TJ commented as his light bounced off the pink skin. “You probably twisted it.”

“Fucking great,” Shane mumbled.

“I’m dialing 911, sit tight,” Devon called up from the bottom of the stairs.

“Wait, hold on! It’s just a twisted ankle, I don’t need to go to the damn hospital.”

“You’re on the clock, bud,” Mark said, as Devon headed out the front door. “She’d make you go if it was a papercut.”

“Goddammit,” Shane grumbled. This was already so fucking embarrassing and now there was going to be a trip to the damn ER on top of it? For a stupid twisted ankle? Fucking A.

“Hey, maybe you’ll get some good pain pills out of it, at least,” TJ pointed out. “You guys want to give me your cameras?”

“Oh, right.”

Not even thinking, Shane let go of his ankle to undo his GoPro straps. His ankle started to slide off his knee, sending strange bolts of pain up his leg, so he had to grab hold of it again to keep it in place. Before he could say anything, he felt fingers that weren’t his own unbuckle the camera’s straps and begin to slide them off his shoulders.

Wordlessly, Ryan reached around to hold onto the camera so it wouldn’t fall, pressing it into Shane’s chest as Shane slid his right arm out of the straps. Ryan’s breath was still unsteady as he motioned for Shane to hold his ankle with his right hand so Ryan could do the other side, and it was kind of freaking Shane out. Why was Ryan, the guy who never shut the fuck up when he got even mildly startled, being so quiet?

“Thanks,” Shane said once his GoPro was off and in TJ’s hands, along with Ryan’s as well.

“No problem,” Ryan muttered so quietly Shane almost couldn’t make it out.

While TJ ran the cameras back downstairs with the rest of their gear, Ryan stayed next to Shane, finally properly sitting down next to him on the stairs. Because of how narrow the staircase was and how Shane was having to sit keep his ankle propped up, there was hardly an inch of air between them.

“Sorry,” Shane said.

“For what?” Ryan asked, his voice still so uncharacteristically soft.

“Ruining the shoot? I know you probably had a whole thing planned for the basement. Now it’s just gonna end abruptly ‘cause my stupid giant foot missed a step.”

To Shane’s surprise, Ryan squeezed his hand around Shane’s forearm. Despite it being so hot, his palms were clammy. “You didn’t ruin anything.”

Shane tore his eyes away from his own ankle to glance at him. Sweat was dripping down his forehead onto his nose, and he was blinking way more than normal.

“Ryan...are _you_ okay?”

Before he could answer, TJ was back in front of them, pointing a thumb towards the entrance. “We’ve got a path cleared to this chair that was behind the front desk. How do you want to do this?”

“Um, I guess someone just help me hobble down the stairs?”

Ryan suddenly sprung up and held out his hand in front of Shane’s nose. “I can.”

“Thanks, man, but we’re not exactly height compatible for this,” Shane pointed out.

“Here, I’ll-,” TJ started, but Ryan cut him off.

“No, I got it. Teej can spot us.”

Shane and TJ shared equally dubious looks, but TJ stepped back down a couple stairs as Ryan took point. Shane was really not sure how this was supposed to work, but he had to get down the stairs somehow.

Using both the railing and Ryan, Shane pulled himself up into a standing position with all his weight on his right foot. He immediately felt so off-balance that it was all he could do to stay standing.

Ryan wrapped Shane’s left arm around his shoulders. “Can you step down?”

To everyone else it probably didn’t look like it, but Shane tried, he really did. He was going to use his upper body strength to hop down onto the next step and land back on his right foot again, but as soon as his fingers tightened around the railing his sweaty palm slipped against the varnished wood. Kill Bill sirens went off in his brain.

“I-,” he swallowed, wishing he was invisible. “I don’t think I can.”

“I can lift almost twice my body weight,” Ryan said abruptly.

Shane turned his head towards him, a laugh he didn’t think was possible right now on the tip of his tongue. “...Good for you? What the fuck does that have to do anything?”

“It means I can carry you.”

“ _Ryan_ ,” he said with more exasperation than he ever had at him, which was saying something. “You cannot be serious.”

“Do you have another idea?”

Shane didn’t. Neither did TJ, who shrugged at them from his spot a couple stairs down.

“Fine. I guess we’re about to find out if all that working out you do is worth a damn,” Shane sighed. “How do you want to do this?”

Ryan dropped Shane’s arm from around his shoulders and wrapped one of his arms around Shane’s lower back as he knelt down to hug the other behind his knees. Meanwhile, TJ came back up a couple steps, holding his arms out like he was spotting some guy at the gym.

“On three, let go of the railing and grab onto me, okay?” Ryan said.

Shane nodded, automatically tightening his grip on the railing. “On three.”

“One...two...three!”

Shane didn’t let go.

Ryan’s arm around Shane’s lower back tightened, his fingers digging into Shane’s side. “Um, you’re supposed to let go.”

“I know. It’s just…,” Shane left the thought hanging, not sure how to vocalize it. “I’m not. I’m not good at this.”

“I won’t drop you,” Ryan told him, voice quiet again. “I promise.”

He nodded again, swallowing a lump he didn’t understand in his throat. “On three again.”

“One...two...three!”

This time Shane let go. With a grunt that Shane normally would have razzed him about, Ryan lifted him up, one arm around his back and the other under the crook of his knees. Holy shit, this felt weird. Shane couldn’t exactly remember the last time he’d been carried, but it was during the Clinton administration and it was a bit frightening to have such little control over where his body was going. But Ryan had him, his absurdly defined arms finally living up to their potential.

Shane looped his own arms awkwardly around Ryan’s neck, not sure what else to do with them, and he could feel the sweat and heat of Ryan’s skin through his t-shirt. More sweat broke out on Shane’s own neck.

“See, big guy? Easy,” Ryan flashed him a reassuring smile and Shane felt his face burn for at least seven different reasons. Maybe eight.

“Okay, step one,” TJ said from below them, his arms still outstretched.

“Step one,” Ryan repeated, his fingers digging into Shane’s side and knee as he sidestepped down one stair. “Okay?”

It was Shane’s turn to be unusually quiet. “Yeah.”

“Step two,” TJ said again.

With another grunt, Ryan stepped down again. Shane kept himself stiff, afraid that any sudden movement would prove disastrous for both of them. He didn’t even move his neck, keeping his eyes trained on Ryan’s profile as he navigated them down steps three, four, and five. Sweat was practically pouring off of Ryan now, with drops falling off the tips of his hair and down his nose. But Ryan was steady, even though Shane could feel his arm muscles begin to quiver on the fifth step.

“Last one.”

With a final deep breath and noise so strange that Shane had to chuckle, Ryan made the final step onto solid ground, his grip never wavering.

“My hero,” Shane grinned, finally feeling sort of normal, even though his best friend was holding him like a groom would carry his bride over the threshold.

Ryan’s face flushed, looking away. “I’m not.”

“You’re literally holding me in your arms like a knight who just rescued a princess. Kind of the definition of a hero.”

Ryan didn’t say anything as TJ stepped up right next to Shane’s right shoulder.

“Hey, if you put your good leg down, I’ve got you on this side,” he said. “We’ll get you to the chair.”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, okay.”

With both of their help, Shane got his right foot back on the ground and was able to stand with his arms around their shoulders. He chanced putting the ball of his left foot down too, just in case he could limp on it, but his body let him know that was a dumb idea pretty quickly.

It was only a couple of steps to the chair, which Mark had placed so he’d have a straight shot out of the front door if needed. As soon as he was seated and his left foot rested against the floor, a new and different kind of pain began to radiate from Shane’s ankle. He was about to swing his knee back up to hold onto his ankle again when Ryan plopped himself down right in front of Shane’s feet, shining his phone’s flashlight on him.

“Was it this red a few minutes ago?” Ryan asked as he inspected Shane’s foot.

“I don’t think so,” Shane frowned, bending over to look, too. “What does that mean?”

“No idea. Hey, maybe we should prop it up, until the ambulance gets here?”

“Okay, but with what?”

Ryan stood back up to look around, eventually spotting the small pile of camera and equipment cases by the front door. He grabbed one of the sturdier ones and dragged it over to Shane’s feet.

“Here.”

Shane lifted his leg to rest his ankle on the case. As soon as he did, he felt bones or muscles or something shift. A gasp automatically escaped his throat. Fuck, that was weird.

“What happened?” Ryan asked, panic on the edge of his voice.

“Think it’s just overly sensitive,” Shane lied through gritted teeth. “Probably have a bunch of nasty bruises in a day or two.”

Ryan glanced down at Shane’s foot. It was sitting at a slightly unnatural angle, propped up on the camera case.

“Shane…,” Ryan started but Shane cut him off.

“It’s just twisted, right? They’ll twist it back.”

“Yeah. It’ll be fine, man,” Ryan said with an unconvincing smile.

Ryan sat next to him on the floor as they waited for the ambulance to come, while Shane scrolled through Twitter to give his hands and brain something to do.

“Hey, the reviews for Fallout are really good,” Shane commented, nudging Ryan’s shoulder.

“Yeah? Awesome.”

“Supposed to be the best one, yet. The next twelve days cannot go by fast enough.”

“Agreed. I’m really tired of looking at that disgusting caterpillar under your nose you call a mustache.”

Shane grinned. “You love it, don’t lie.”

“I really, really don’t,” Ryan protested but with a grin.

Shane had an incredibly gross “flavor saver” joke locked and loaded, but it died in his throat as red flashing lights flickered across the across the hotel floor and onto Ryan’s face.

“It’s gonna be okay, okay?” Ryan reassured him quietly, reaching up to squeeze Shane’s arm.

“Of course it will. They’ll wrap me in an ACE bandage and send me on my way. We’ll be back in our shitty hotel in an hour, guarantee it,” he said confidently.

Ryan did not look convinced, but Shane didn’t care. He was sure that this would all be over soon, just a dumb funny story to tell. As a teenager, he constantly fell going up and down the stairs thanks to limbs that grew faster than his brain could keep up with. He was always fine. Why would this be any different?

Moments later, they were greeted by a couple of EMTs who asked him his name and what happened.

“Shane Madej. I fell down those stairs like an idiot, twisted the ol’ ankle.”

The female EMT, Abby, looked up at him from where she was squatting next to Shane’s foot on the camera case.

“When you fell, did you hit your head?”

“Um, I don’t think so? Did I?” Shane looked to Ryan and the rest of the crew, all of whom seemed unsure.

“It was really fast so I’m not sure, but you did end up with your head on the stairs…,” TJ pointed out uneasily, biting his lip.

At that, the male EMT sprinted back outside. Abby moved to inspect Shane’s head, holding his neck in place. “Do you feel dizzy or disoriented?”

He swallowed, suddenly incredibly nervous. “No. Like I said, I just twisted or sprained my ankle. That’s it.”

“We’ll have to see about that. You really shouldn’t have moved after you fell, head injuries need to be stabilized.”

Ryan made a strange noise from beside him. Shane couldn’t move to look at him, as he was being examined.

“But I feel fine, seriously! You can just give me an ice pack, I’ll be fine!” he rambled as Abby shined a light in his eyes.

“Your pupils are slightly dilated, that could be a sign of a concussion. We’re going to have to collar and board you, okay?”

“Hold on, wait, we just turned on all the lights in here, it was dark, my eyes are just adjusting, right?” Shane said, desperate for someone to agree with him. No one did.

“That’s possible, but it’s better to be safe than sorry,” she said. “Here comes Pedro with the board. We’ll get you and your ankle stabilized and take you straight to St. Joseph’s. It’s only a few miles from here, it won’t take long.”

The next few minutes were a blur of foam stabilizing materials and straps and Shane trying very hard to not have a panic attack. He considered himself a pretty unflappable guy most of the time, but having such little control over his own body as the EMTs lowered him onto the backboard was causing all the sirens in his brain to go off. This was totally unnecessary, he was _fine_. Yeah, his ankle hurt like hell when they’d stabilized it but it was sprained or whatever, of course it hurt!

When the EMTs lifted him up, he was finally able to see the rest of the crew out of his peripheral vision, but not Ryan.

“Devon and I gotta stay here to deal with the owners and stuff for now, sorry. Good luck, man,” Mark said.

Devon gave him a very kind smile. “We’ll be there as soon as we can, though.”

“Yeah, and me and Ryan will be right behind you,” TJ said, jangling some keys.

“Ryan…?” Shane asked, unable to keep the raspiness out of his throat.

Ryan finally stepped into view, eyes red.

“Yeah?”

Without a second thought, Shane reached out to him to grab his hand and give it a squeeze. “I’ll be okay.”

He told himself he said it for Ryan’s sake, but deep down, he knew that wasn’t completely true.

Ryan gripped his hand back, flashing him a tight smile. “Yeah, you will.”

As Shane was whisked away, he focused on that phantom pressure, of Ryan’s skin against his. It grounded him, kept his mind from going worst case scenario. Everything was going to be okay. He was sure of it.

* * *

 Ryan was not sure of most things in life, but he was right now.

This was not okay.

Nothing was okay.

Ryan, certainly, was not okay. He was the exact polar opposite of okay. He was so not okay that he wanted to throw up, but he couldn’t when he tried.

His co-host, his fellow Ghoul Boy, his best friend was being taken to the hospital.

And it was all Ryan’s fault.

It had happened so fast, like a lightning strike, but he remembered choosing to move out of the way of Shane’s flailing limbs, pressing himself up against the wall as Shane fell. It was a subconscious decision, sure, but one Ryan’s brain made nonetheless. And now Shane was paying for it by being taken to a strange hospital in a strange town with a concussion and a fucked up ankle and probably a lacerated spleen and internal bleeding and broken ribs on top of those.

If Ryan had just turned around or tried to grab him or even just let Shane fall on top of him, Shane would be okay. They’d be laughing off the clumsiness while investigating that hotel’s basement, cracking jokes about how these old buildings were made for people half Shane’s size and that the ghosts were probably afraid of this sasquatch invading their stomping grounds.

But he hadn’t, like the fucking piece of shit coward he was, and now, he was trying very hard not to lose his mind as TJ drove them to the hospital.

“God-fucking-dammit, drive faster, Teej!”

“We. Are. At. A. Red. Light,” TJ pointed out tersely.

“It’s the middle of the night, no one’s around! Just go!”

“Jesus Christ, Ryan, no. You’ve got to calm down, man.”

“I am calm!” he yelled.

TJ sighed, not dignifying the obvious lie with a comment, while Ryan absentmindedly wrapped and unwrapped the lace of Shane’s left sneaker around his finger. He knew, somewhere in his jumbled mind, that he was being irrational, but he couldn’t stop himself. He just needed to see Shane again, hear him again, touch him again…

Ryan pulled the shoelace tight around his index finger, remembering how Shane had grabbed his hand right before being taken out to the ambulance. They’d only ever held hands once before, performing an extremely half-assed seance in the Bellaire house, but this was obviously different, the way his long, spidery fingers had squeezed around Ryan’s like they were searching for something. He swallowed, pushing a confusion he long since thought he’d dealt with all the way down. No need for _those_ kinds of feelings on top of everything else going on tonight.

Ryan was quiet the rest of the short drive to the hospital, but his nerves were still as worn and frayed as the shoelace. He’d give up anything to get into a Delorean and go back and fix this. Sex, booze, greasy food, his left nut, _anything_.

Once they were in the waiting area of the ER, Ryan tried to distract himself. First with a Highlights magazine (turns out, those aren’t that interesting to twenty-seven year old adults), then with some social media perusing (he closed Twitter the moment he saw a link to a Mission Impossible: Fallout review), and lastly by hunching over to stare at a stain on the floor like it was a Magic Eye puzzle.

TJ finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“He’s going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that,” Ryan snapped, harsher than he meant it.

“Yeah, he is. Worst case scenario, a concussion isn’t the end of the world, if he even has one. And that’s a big ‘if’.”

Ryan turned his head, his eyes narrowed at TJ and his completely reasonable point. “Richard Ramirez. Ed Gein. John Wayne Gacy. Know what they all have in common?”

TJ raised his eyebrows. “Uh, they’re serial killers? What does that have to do with anything?”

“All of them had traumatic brain injuries as kids, that’s what,” Ryan huffed.

To his eternal credit, TJ did not outwardly laugh or make fun of him. “First of all, Shane’s an adult. Second of all, he’s not going to become a serial killer. And third of all, before you even say it, one concussion does not mean he has CTE or whatever it’s called. And fourth of all, we still don’t know that he even has one. So, just...chill, okay? You were chill earlier.”

“That was before all the…,” he motioned to his head, mimicking the head and neck collar the EMTs had strapped onto Shane.

“That was kind of intense,” TJ admitted. “I can’t believe we didn’t even think about not moving him.”

“I know. I probably paralyzed him by carrying him down those stairs,” Ryan muttered.

TJ buried his face in his hands. “Oh my God.”

Before Ryan could point out that his cowardice and stupidity had just killed his best friend, his phone buzzed in his pants pocket.

_From: Shane Madej_

_You can come back now. Ask the desk person they can let you in & give you my room #. Only 1 at a time though. _

TJ was looking at his phone as well, having gotten the same text. They spoke at roughly the same time.

“Can I-?”

“Go.”

Ryan was already out of his chair. “Thanks!”

“Let us know what’s up, okay?”

“Yup!” he shouted from over his shoulder as he jogged to the front desk to ask for Shane’s room number and permission into the ER. An orderly led him through some locked doors, down a mini-maze of hallways and desks and patients on hospital beds parked outside rooms until they reached room 273.

The door to the very cramped room was open to the best sight Ryan had ever seen.

Shane without anything around his head or neck, sitting up, typing something on his phone.

Weight fell off Ryan’s shoulders like a rockslide as he jogged inside, a giant smile of relief on his face.

“Hey!”

Shane’s head popped up from his phone with its own smile. “Hey.”

“So, good news?” Ryan asked, stepping up next to him on the left side of the bed.

“Yup, so far. No concussion or other head trauma,” Shane said, lightly knocking on the side of his head. “This baby is solid as a rock.”

“That’s great! What about your ankle?”

Ryan glanced down to see it propped up on some folded blankets with an ice pack.

“Just waiting on the X-rays for that. I probably tore some ligaments so they had to see which ones,” Shane explained. “But hopefully that should be it.”

“Oh man, that’s awesome. I mean, that kind of sucks, but it’s not too bad, right?”  


“Yeah!” Shane agreed, resting back against the pillow behind his head to look up at Ryan properly. He was so tall that he seemed to just barely fit, the tips of his hair falling over the top edge of the bed. “Some bedrest, take ‘er easy for a couple weeks, I can deal with that. Told you I’d be fine.”

“For once, I’m glad you’re right.”

Not even thinking, Ryan reached over the bar of the bed to find Shane’s hand, giving it a little squeeze. Shane winced, pulling his hand away and up to show off the IV that was sticking out of the back of it.

“Oh fuck, sorry,” Ryan stammered as his cheeks began to burn. “Did I hurt you?”

“Nah, it’s just a little tender. I promise I won’t serial murder you for it,” he smirked and winked at the same time.

Ryan’s entire face felt like it was engulfed in flames. Goddammit, TJ. “In my defense-,”

“Oh, I cannot wait to hear this.”

“Shut up. In my defense, I’m knee-deep in crime research now for next season, and I’d just seen you all strapped up with foam. I was kind of freaking out.”

“According to Teej, you also thought you paralyzed me, so I think ‘kind of’ is out the window there,” Shane pointed out.

“Maybe I overreacted a little,” Ryan mumbled, too embarrassed to meet Shane’s eyes with his own.

“A little?”

“Okay, a lot. But that was really fucking scary, alright? You know how I get when I’m scared.”

“I do,” Shane said before clearing his throat to lower his voice. “I was a little scared, too.”

“Yeah? It’s hard to tell with you.”

“Yeah,” he confirmed, giving Ryan a soft smile that slowly turned into a smirk. “Just a little, though. It’s not like I heard a shoe squeaking on the floor or something truly scary.”

Ryan playfully pushed on his shoulder with a grin. “Hilarious.”

Shane had a retort ready but they were interrupted by a PA entering the room and flipping on the lighted panel for X-rays and scans.

“Good news, Mr. Madeej-,”

“Madej,” Shane automatically corrected.

“Madej, sorry,” the PA apologized before moving on. “Your X-rays are in and as you can see,” he paused to clip a couple black and white scans on the lighted panel. “The break was a simple hairline fracture across the fibula, right here.”

He pointed to a spot on the X-ray and continued on but Ryan didn’t hear anything after “break.”

And by the look on Shane’s face, he didn’t either.


	2. Chapter 2

Break.

That couldn’t be right.

They had someone else’s X-rays.

They were mistaken, a clerical error. Someone should reward him $100, like they do in Monopoly.

Torn ligaments made sense. He could deal with those. And he had those, too.

But a fracture? No. It just didn’t compute.

You couldn’t break your ankle from falling down a couple stairs. It was just too fucking stupid.

An index and middle finger curled around his left ring finger and pinkie. Reflexively, he squeezed around them, even though it strained the back of his hand where the IV was to do so. He didn’t stop squeezing.

“So, we’re going to do a reduction, where we reset your ankle in place. You’ll be under a light sedation so we’ll have to get the anesthesia team in here, okay? Sound good?” the PA finished.

“Sure,” Shane said in a voice that sounded alien to himself.

The PA left, leaving him and Ryan alone again.

“Shane…?” Ryan said in a tiny, quiet voice. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault,” he muttered. “They’ve got the wrong X-rays, probably.”

The fingers tangled in with his left hand twitched. “They have your name on them.”

Shane glanced over at the scans. Huh, so they did.

“Well, that doesn’t make sense.”

“Why?”

“Because you can’t break your leg from falling down five steps,” he coughed from a weird tickle in his throat. “ _I_ can’t break my leg from falling down five steps. It’s too dumb.”

A thumb rubbed itself over his knuckles. “It’s not dumb.”

“It’s incredibly dumb. It’s the dumbest thing that’s ever happened and I’m including Underwater Area 51 in that statement,” Shane said with a shiver as bitterly cold liquid of some kind pumped into his hand through the IV.

Shane’s nurse then returned, along with a couple other nurses and PAs who had to talk to him about the reduction and have him sign some forms and other completely unnecessary bullshit. Any minute now they were going to tell him they had the wrong X-rays, he knew it. His ankle hadn’t even hurt at all for the past few minutes, how could anyone explain that? Check and mate, good madams and sirs.

Ryan had been shuffled around to a chair by the door, but they weren’t able to talk much with the flurry of activity in this small room. Eventually he was asked to wait outside.

“Some people hallucinate, so if you see a dragon on my shoulder, that’s okay!” one of the anesthesiologists told him.

“Yeah, buddy, if Britney can get through 2007, you can get through this,” one of the nurses said in an attempt to be reassuring that did not work.

Another burst of ice cold something shot through the back of his left hand. This was so crazy, were they really going to go through with this when Shane’s ankle wasn’t actually broken? Madness! Utter lunacy. Where was Ryan? Ryan would tell them off, flex those guns and then carry him out of here again. Yeah, that would show them.

Suddenly, around twelve people had crammed themselves around his hospital bed. Wait, how’d they get here so fast? Didn’t matter. They were here to apologize, right? How lovely.

“Okay, Shane, you’re about to get sleepy. It should only last a few minutes, alright?”

They were drugging him now? And hey, wait, were they cutting his jeans? No! They didn’t make that cut anymore! Goddammit, he was going to sue these motherfuckers.

Just after he closed his eyes, first.

* * *

 “Okay, Shane, you did great! We need to take you back for X-rays again to make sure it set correctly but I think we got it,” a voice told him as he blinked awake.

“Mmmph,” was all he could muster in response.

“Give it a few minutes, it’ll wear off,” the same voice told him. “I’ll tell your friend he can come back in, okay?”

“‘Kay.”

Shane tried to adjust himself to sit up a bit more properly, but he couldn’t move his left leg. It was so heavy and warm and strange. As his eyesight came into focus, he saw that his entire lower leg was in a splint of cotton and ACE bandages and something hard and plastic holding it all in place.

He was so focused on such an alien sight that he didn’t register Ryan stepping up next to him until he felt calloused fingertips press against the crook of his elbow.

“How’re you doing, big guy?”

“They cut my jeans,” Shane mumbled, remembering that injustice. “You know how hard it is for me to find jeans, Ryan.”

“I know.”

Tearing his eyes away from his leg, he looked up at Ryan. His eyes were red again and he was as pale as Shane had ever seen him. “You look as shitty as I feel.”

Ryan snorted softly. “Gee, thanks.”

“At least I have an excuse. What’s yours?”

“I,” he bit his lip. “I have to tell you something.”

“Oh no, you’re pregnant!” Shane joked, his brain finally waking up.

Ryan didn’t laugh as he stared down at his own hand, still pressed against Shane’s inner arm. “This is all my fault.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I...I should have caught you,” he said so quietly Shane almost didn’t make it out. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Shane stared at him for a moment, trying to understand what exactly the fuck he meant. Caught him? When? On the _stairs_? Oh, for Christ’s sake.

“ _Ryan_ ,” he finally said, the silent “you’ve outdumbed yourself” follow-up hopefully implied.

“I got out of the way like a fucking coward, I should have tried to grab you or catch you or even let you fall on me, this never would have happened,” Ryan rambled like the precious idiot he was.

Shane sighed dramatically. “You never fail to surprise me.”

Ryan lifted his head at that. “Huh?”

“I really thought we’d hit the nadir of your idiotic theories with Roanoke zombies, but nope, you’ve beat it. I’m impressed, honestly.”

“Shane,” Ryan started, a strange noise getting caught in his throat.

“Ryan,” he copied back. “If you had tried to catch me, we both would have probably fallen the entire way down the stairs, doing God knows what to ourselves. And letting me fall on you? Have you finally lost your mind?”

The color returned brilliantly to Ryan’s face, in a good way. “I mean, I _am_ strong, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”

“Strong, yes. Able to stop a six-foot-four windmill of Schaumburg’s finest? Not so much.”

Ryan finally let out a laugh and Shane instantly felt a little bit better. It was weirdly calming, giving Ryan shit for being a nutcase. His life was about to change dramatically; it was nice to have this one small moment of normalcy before it did.

Over the next couple of hours, Shane was taken for more X-rays, prescribed painkillers, given care instructions and recommendations on finding a bone and joint specialist in LA, and told a whole bunch of really specific medical terms about his ankle that he forgot as soon as he heard them. To him, they didn’t matter. His ankle was broken, that’s all that he needed to know.

When it was finally time to be released, he was given a crash course in using crutches and he was pretty sure they were the most uncomfortable and unnatural things in the history of the world. How the fuck was he supposed to get around on these for the next six to eight weeks?

Six to eight weeks. No walking, no stairs, no standing in the shower, no location shoots, no days at the pool, no traveling, no peeing standing up. For forty-two to fifty-six days.

Shane had always considered himself pretty calm and collected. He wasn’t afraid of ghosts or other things that weren’t real. Not snakes, or clowns, or public speaking, nothing like that. But as he waited with Ryan in a wheelchair by the ER exit for TJ to get the van, the reality of how much this was going to affect his life set in. He took a deep, ragged breath, hoping to center himself, but it ended up having the opposite effect. _C’mon, Shane, get it together._ Guaranteed everyone else in the hospital was dealing with something worse than a broken bone, no need to cry over it.

A hand curled around his shoulder, the thumb rubbing small circles against the back.

“You’ll be okay,” Ryan promised.

And for the first time, Shane ignored his instincts and chose to believe him.

* * *

 “These are fucking impossible,” Shane grumbled as they made their way through their hotel’s lobby as the sun came up. He was not making his usual long strides with crutches, having to stop every couple of steps to steady himself. Ryan was walking backwards in front of him as a spotter and it was odd for him to be the faster of the two, for once.

“Almost to the elevator,” Ryan said, staving off a yawn. “You’ve got it.”

Shane took another step, swinging those long arms forward around the crutches but it was too big of a swing. Despite his own exhaustion Ryan’s reflexes snapped into action, throwing his arms out to grab Shane’s shoulders and keep him upright.

“Shit!” Shane gasped, looking down at Ryan with wide eyes.

“You’re okay, I got you,” he said, ignoring how loudly his heart was beating against his chest.

Shane adjusted his crutches so he could stand on his own and Ryan dropped his hold on him but didn’t step back. “Thanks.”

“See? Told you I could’ve caught you.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “If you don’t move, I _am_ going to fall on you and we’ll see how badly that turns out.”

He stepped back to give Shane more room but he still stayed close all the way back to their hotel room. Once inside, Shane more or less collapsed onto his bed, letting the crutches clatter to the floor.

“What do you need?” Ryan asked.

“Um, I guess something to prop my leg up on. Pillow or towels.”

Quickly, Ryan grabbed all the unused towels from the bathroom and brought them out to set by the end of Shane’s bed Shane was trying to take his jeans off and not having a very easy time with it.

“God-fucking-dammit,” Shane swore as he attempted to pull his good leg out of his pants before sprawling back against the bed. “My hand’s all bruised from that stupid IV, and I’m so fucking tired and _why can’t I just do this_?”

Ryan set the towels down on the floor. “I can help.”

“No, I think I can get it. I’m just all sore,” Shane protested as he tried to lift his ass off the bed to pull his pants down. Shockingly, it did not work.

“Shane…,” Ryan said. “C’mon. Let me help you.”

Shane stared up at him with eyes that were red from exhaustion and drugs and emotion. Ryan had never seen him look so awful, so out of it and unlike himself, and it tugged at something in his own gut that he couldn’t explain.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. It’ll be faster, right? Then we can crash,” Ryan reasoned. “Use your arms to prop yourself up and I’ll pull them off.”

With a nod, Shane lifted his ass off the bed with all his weight on his right leg and his arms by his side. Ryan leaned over him, and in his haste to pull the jeans off as quickly as possible, Ryan accidentally grabbed the elastic of Shane’s underwear as well. He paused when he realized his fingers were touching Shane’s hips so he didn’t pull them off, but he didn’t move either. Shane’s skin was warm and oddly soft, and a very significant part of Ryan’s stupid brain did not want to stop touching it.

“Hey, buy a guy a drink, first,” Shane said with a smile, sounding like himself for the first time in a couple hours.

Ryan blushed furiously, finally yanking his hands out of Shane’s pants. “Sorry!”

“S’okay. I know you’re just dying to see these pasty white thighs,” he teased.

“In your dreams. I’m just really tired and my fingers slipped.”

“Mmhmm, sure,” Shane said in that tone that Ryan knew was reserved for messing with him, which made him feel slightly better about almost accidentally copping a feel.

“Shut up. Do you want these pants off or not?”

Shane lifted up off the bed again. “Off. Underwear stays on, though.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

This time, Ryan successfully pulled just Shane’s jeans down, but he was unable to avoid the outline of Shane’s dick in his boxer-briefs, and well. Ryan had wondered if it was proportional to the rest of him, and it appeared that it was. Great, just great to have that bit of information about his best friend floating around in his brain, now.

Shane either didn’t care or didn’t notice that Ryan could see it, though, as he held his legs up so that Ryan could keep pulling his pants off. It was awkward, trying to be careful and avoid Shane’s splint while also navigating his fifteen miles of leg, but he eventually got them off.

“Thanks,” Shane said, pulling the sheets up and over his lap. “Now, I am going to sleep for a hundred years.”

“More like six or seven hours. Devon got us a late checkout, but we still have to leave today,” Ryan explained as he set the folded towels down by Shane’s left leg.

“Fantastic,” he mumbled, lifting his leg onto the pile of the towels.

“We can sleep in the van, at least.”

Shane did not look optimistic on that front, and Ryan couldn’t blame him. Even though he could stretch out on one of the bench seats, there was no way that was going to be super comfortable for the four and a half hour drive back to Los Angeles.

Ryan quickly changed into his sweatpants and made sure all the blinds were closed so the sun wouldn’t wake them up. He was about to crawl into his own bed when he felt an arm reach out for him as he passed in between the space of the hotel beds.

“Thanks, again. For all of this,” Shane said, catching Ryan’s wrist.

“It’s nothing.”

His fingers tightened around Ryan’s wrist. “No, it isn’t. I know I’m not some tiny person you can just throw over your shoulder and deal with. So, just. Thank you.”

Ryan felt that same tug at his gut again. “Hey, man, no. You don’t need to thank me, I know you’d do the same for me. What are friends for, right?”

Shane slid his hand down to briefly clutch Ryan’s own. When he spoke there was a small catch in his throat. “Right.”

They stayed like that for just a few more seconds before saying goodnights, but as Ryan slipped into bed, all he could think about was how much of Shane’s skin he had touched tonight and how not-weird it felt. It should have felt weird, right? But it didn’t. It felt...nice. Natural, even. Did that mean what Ryan thought it meant? Or was he just sleep-deprived after a really long and draining night? Probably the latter, right?

Ryan buried his face in into the flat hotel pillow. So much for keeping those confusing feelings down. They were back, and more bewildering than ever.

* * *

 They were only an hour into the drive back to LA and Shane was pretty sure he had never been more miserable in his entire life. He was unshowered, unrested, and his left leg kept slipping off the edge of the seat onto a duffel bag. It didn’t really hurt, but it was jarring, and _goddammit_ , he just wanted to be home.

It didn’t help that sleep was pretty impossible. His mom, bless her, kept texting him and asking him if he was okay and that she and his dad would cancel their trip to Italy to come stay with him, it was fine, even though Shane insisted that they shouldn’t.

_From Mom_

_M: It’s ok we can go to Italy next year. You need someone to stay with you!!!_

_S: I have lots of friends, I’ll be fine. You guys have been planning that trip for years, please go._

_M: tell me the minute you find someone ok?_

_S: ok_

He sighed, resting his head against the van window. Moms were great but exhausting, sometimes.

“You want some water?” Ryan said, shoving a water bottle in his face. “Snacks? I’ve got some beef jerky and pretzels.”

“I’m good, but thanks.”

“Are you sure? You should probably stay hydrated.”

“Ryan, I already have one mom mothering me to death from two thousand miles away, I don’t need you to do it, too,” he said with more irritation than he truly meant.

Sheepishly, Ryan sat back in his seat. Shane felt like an ass. He knew he was just being helpful, but he was just so deeply, physically uncomfortable that it was leaking into his state of mind.

Around thirty minutes and a failed nap later, Ryan was leaning over his seat again.

“Um, hey, sorry, but does your mom have a Twitter?”

“What? No.”

“Then why did a sherrymadej7777 just send me a bunch of tweets asking me to stay with you?”

“What!?” Shane snatched Ryan’s phone out of his hand to see for himself.

_@ryansbergara hi Ryan it’s Shane’s mom! I don’t have your number so this is the best way I knew to talk to you! Please stay with him while he recovers!_

_@ryansbergara I know we haven’t met but it would mean a lot to me to know one of his closest friends was with him!_

_@ryansbergara we can send you some money for it too!! We know how it expensive it is out there for you boys!_

“Oh my fucking God,” Shane muttered. “She didn’t.”

“I think she did,” Ryan said, stifling a giggle. “How much do you think I can get out of her and your dad?”

“Nothing, you’re not gonna get paid to be my nurse or whatever the hell she’s thinking,” he said, pulling out his own phone to type a strongly worded text.

“Dude, I was kidding. I’ll stay with you for free.”

Shane peered up at him from his phone. “I don’t have a spare bedroom.”

“Your couch pulls out. I’ve crashed there before, it was pretty comfy.”

“I’ve got Obi, now, though. And you’re allergic.”

He shrugged. “I’ll load up on Benadryl.”

“Are you sure? I can find someone else.”

“Yeah, but would they be Sherry Madej approved?” Ryan grinned. “Seriously, man, it’s not a big deal. I’m happy to help.”

Shane thought about it. He would need some help, at least for a week or two, until he got into the swing of getting around his apartment with crutches. And he could do worse than Ryan as a temporary roommate. A lot worse.

“Yeah, okay. If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. Ghoul Boys ride or die,” he grinned again, a giant million dollar smile that Shane couldn’t help but return, even in his foul mood.

“Ride or die, baby.”

Ryan’s cheeks flushed as he sat back in his seat, busying himself with his phone. Internally, Shane sighed. Ryan had gotten so much better about his “no homo” bullshit over the past year or so, but sometimes it still reared its ugly head in subtle ways. And it was extra disappointing that a random “baby” that didn’t mean anything would make him uncomfortable, especially after last night, with the carrying and all the hand holding. Maybe that’s why Ryan got weird, had it been too much for him? He had to know that even though Shane was bi, it wasn’t about that, right? Of course, this was Ryan, the same person who thought Shane might become a serial killer from falling down the stairs.

Shane flexed his left hand, remembering Ryan’s fingers clutching his when they’d seen his X-rays. He didn’t think he could ever admit how much that had meant to him, grounding him in the moment he’d needed it most. It was too...real, for lack of a better term. And Ryan would freak out, and not in the fun way. Ah, oh well. Sometimes things were meant to be kept secret.

Speaking of things kept secret, Shane picked up his phone to text his mom before she tweeted some embarrassing baby photos of him as leverage.

_S: hey Ryan is going to stay with me you can stop tweeting at him._

_M: great! Send me some snacks he likes. we’re going to send a care package._

_S: aw mom you don’t have to do that._

_M: it’s the least we can do!! Now get some rest. And drink plenty of water!!_

Shane smiled as he stuffed his phone back in his pocket. This whole broken leg thing was going to suck, but maybe now, it would suck slightly less.

* * *

 Ryan had signed up to do some stupid shit in his life but this had to be one of the stupidest.

Not that agreeing to help Shane was stupid. On its own, it was the right and obvious thing to do, nothing dumb about that. Ryan would do that for a lot of his friends, especially one of his best friends, which Shane was.

But it was precisely because it _was_ Shane that this was so stupid. If the de-pantsification incident was any indication, helping Shane out meant he was going to be seeing _a lot_ of him. And Ryan’s brain and dick were too confused on that front for this to be anything but completely, utterly stupid.

It had all started late last year. At the company holiday party, after everyone was pleasantly drunk but before they were obliterated, Shane had gotten a little friendly with some dude from the accounting department, slinging one of those long arms around that guy’s side, sticking his thumb through a belt loop. They had disappeared for awhile, reappearing with rumpled hair and shirts, and it had made Ryan uncomfortable in way that he hated himself for. What the fuck was wrong with him that he had an issue with Shane hooking up some guy? He worked at Buzzfeed, for fuck’s sake.

So why did it bother him that Shane had a brief drunken hook-up with some accountant? Especially since that guy wasn’t even that good-looking (not that Ryan had noticed) and he just seemed so _boring_ when Ryan had chatted with him (he was one of those “I don’t own a TV” guys. The worst.). What did Shane see in a guy like that? He should be with a guy who liked watching movies with a giant tub of popcorn between them and who laughed at all his dumb jokes and took _some_ pride in his appearance.

It took Ryan exactly five days and seventeen hours to realize he was thinking about himself.

He had been watching a basketball game, of all things, one of the least Shane-centric activities in the world. The Lakers were playing the Spurs and they were getting killed, but it wasn’t as heartbreaking as usual, since Pau Gasol was on the Spurs now. He was a former Laker and Ryan had always liked him, to the point where he had once been Ryan’s answer to “if you had a pick a basketball player.”

As he watched Number 16 dribble down the court, he realized with his hair cut like that he kind of, sort of looked like Shane, albeit taller.

The dots connected themselves pretty quickly after that.

Ryan allowed himself a full week of freaking the fuck out before he had to get his shit together. He watched gay porn that mostly did nothing for him (at least, not until he found a performer who was really tall and lanky and oh fuck, he had a type, didn’t he?), he Googled “bisexuality” in about a dozen permutations, he looked up Buzzfeed’s coworker dating policy, and he talked himself in and out of whether his crush was real or not about a hundred times.

When his week was up, Ryan decided that yes, his crush was real, but it was also just that: a crush. An infatuation with the one person he spent most of his time with. It was totally natural, and it didn’t mean he had to switch his Tinder profile to “looking for men and women”. He would have to get over it, but he could do that.

And he had. He’d gone out with a couple different girls, although none of them had worked out, and he knew Shane had been dating around as well (with a similar success rate). The show was going great and they were both having so much fun, it was easy to fall back into his pre-crush routine. Although, okay, yeah, Ryan still sometimes watched that one particular pornstar when he jerked off, but that was okay. Nothing wrong with a little sexual exploration.

But now, it was glaringly obvious that Ryan had _not_ dealt with his crush as well as he thought he had. All the freaking out, the hand holding, the pants situation, Ryan _carrying him down the stairs_ : it was all pretty damn apparent that whatever sort of infatuation he had for Shane, it had not gone away.

And now, instead of putting some distance between them so Ryan could get his shit together again, here he was volunteering to live on Shane’s couch for a few weeks.

So fucking stupid.

“I cannot explain to you how much I hate this,” Shane grumbled from about a few feet behind him as they slowly made their way up to Shane’s apartment.

Ryan was already at the elevator, all of their bags strapped around his neck and arms. “I’m sure you’ll get used to it.”

“Doubt it.”

The elevator doors opened and Ryan stepped inside, jamming the “Door Open” button until Shane could follow him on.

“Ah shit, is the floor wet in here? Gross,” Shane frowned, staring down at a small puddle by his crutches.

“Ew, I didn’t even see it with all these bags. Can you get avoid it?”

“Maybe.”

Shane angled himself to avoid the small puddle but one of his crutches found it anyway, and he fell forward, only to be stopped by Ryan and his arms full of bags.

Breathing heavily, Shane’s hands tightened around Ryan’s shoulders as he held himself up and Ryan’s did the same around Shane’s sides.

“Caught you again,” Ryan said, ignoring how fast his heart was racing.

“Lucky catch,” Shane muttered.

It took a few awkward minutes for Ryan to pick Shane’s crutches up while also being his support system. Ryan’s head bumped into Shane’s arms and sides multiple times. It was a testament to how tired they both were that neither of them acknowledged it.

“Thanks. Again,” Shane said once the elevator started. “I’m just so fucking tired, I don’t know if I could walk straight even if I could use two legs.”

“Of course. That’s what I’m here for.”

Disembarking the elevator was much less eventful, as Shane was able to avoid the puddle this time and stay upright all the way back to his apartment. Inside, Ryan dumped all the bags unceremoniously by the couch while Shane called for his cat.

“Obi? C’mere kitty kitty.”

The orange cat peeked his head around the kitchen corner, but when Shane took a step forward on his crutches Obi darted away.

“Fuck. And he was just starting to not freak out so much,” Shane said miserably.

“It’s probably me, he’s only met me a couple times,” Ryan offered.

“No, it’s these stupid horrible crutches,” he scowled. “The sheets for the pullout are in that hall closet, help yourself to the kitchen. I’m going to bed.”

“Do you need anything? Water?”

“No, I can get it.” Shane took a couple hops towards his kitchen before he stopped. “Wait, I guess I can’t. I don’t have a free hand.”

Ryan squeezed past him to get into the kitchen. “I got it.”

Glass of water in hand, Ryan followed Shane back to his room and helped him stuff a pillow under his bad leg.

“Anything else?”

“I don’t think so. I guess I’ll text-,” Shane stopped, eyeing Obi as he walked into the room. “Hey, Obi, c’mere buddy.”

Ryan turned around to watch Obi approach Shane’s crutches with suspicion, sniff them, and then bolt away. Shane made an odd noise, part bitter laughter, part dry sob, all-around terrible to Ryan’s ears.

“He’ll come back,” Ryan assured him.

Shane looked up at him, his face lined with fatigue. “I hate this, Ryan. I hate it so much.”

“I know,” he said quietly, giving Shane’s shoulder a squeeze before leaving him to get some much needed rest.

While Ryan was making up the pullout couch he realized that no matter how stupid it was, he couldn’t be paid to be anywhere else in the world right now. Confusing feelings be damned, Shane needed him.


	3. Chapter 3

Shane slept off and on well into the next day and still didn’t feel fully rested. He could only sleep for a couple hours at a time, waking up due to his ankle throbbing or the general discomfort of having to sleep on his back and not being able to move around. The only good thing was that Obi found his bravery sometime during the night and curled up next to him for most of it.

“Told you he’d come around,” Ryan said, bringing in a bunch of CVS bags to Shane’s room.

“Yeah. He’s a good boy,” Shane cooed as he gave Obi a chin scratch. “Instacart person already came?”

“Yup. We got snacks, we got allergy meds, we got cat food, we got trash bags, we got plastic wrap, and the Mack Daddy of them all,” Ryan pulled a box out of the biggest bag. “We got a shower chair.”

“Fantastic. The layer of grime on me right now is on the verge of becoming sentient.”

“Thanks for that visual,” Ryan cringed. “I’ll put it together and leave it in the shower for when you need it.”

“Great, thanks,” he said, pulling himself up to rest his back against the headboard. “Hey, um, real quick. Sorry I was kind of a mess last night.”

“Dude, you broke your ankle and had barely slept for over twenty-four hours. I would’ve been way worse.”

Shane grinned at that. “You would be a nightmare patient, wouldn’t you?”

“One hundred percent,” Ryan grinned back. “I’d be convinced every single twinge of pain was about to kill me, and I’d probably have to have one of those little bells people use in old TV shows.”

Shane mimed ringing a small, handheld bell and put on a goofy voice. “Help me, Shane, there’s a ghost in my cast!”

“Great impression of me, as always,” he shook his head, hiding a smile.

“You love it.”

“Nope,” Ryan said, heading out the door with the shower chair and a couple other bags. “You want something to eat? I can put an order in.”

“Maybe later. Thanks.”

Shane ran a hand through his hair, grimacing at how greasy it was. He hadn’t showered since Friday morning, and between the ghost hunting, the hospital, and the car ride he was truly repugnant right now. As tired as he still was, it was shower time.

With only a little trouble, Shane grabbed some fresh clothes and threw them over his shoulder before hobbling into the bathroom. Ryan already had the white plastic chair in Shane’s shower, along with the trash bags and plastic wrap to keep his splint dry. As Shane dropped onto the chair, he realized how lucky he was to have a walk-in shower with a sliding-glass door. How the hell did people with tubs do this?

Once he was seated, he shimmied out of his clothes and got to wrapping up his left leg. It was a little awkward, but he wrapped it in enough plastic wrap to hopefully keep it dry. Finally, he turned the shower on, not even caring that the water hadn’t warmed up, he was so determined to rinse the grit and grime of the past forty-eight hours off.

About twenty minutes later, he realized that in his desperation to get clean, Shane had made at least four crucial mistakes.

One: He had left his crutches near the shower door, but he couldn’t stand up on a wet foot and wet palms to use them.

Two: His towel and his fresh clothes were on the sink, out of reach.

Three: He’d flung his dirty clothes off once in the shower and had no idea where they’d even landed.

Four: Even if he had left his towel within reach, the shower floor was still wet. After the Puddle Incident, he wasn’t confident in his ability to stand up in the shower anyway.

This was a problem. A problem with only one awkward, potentially humiliating solution.

“RYAN!”

About eight seconds and several thundering footsteps later: “You okay?!” Ryan shouted from the other side of the door.

“Physically, yes. But I am, hm, how do I put this? Trapped.”

“What? Trapped where?”

“In the shower. I didn’t leave the towel close enough and I’m all wet and slippery.”

“Oh, ok. I’ll toss it to you,” Ryan said, turning the door handle.

“Wait! I am also extremely naked. Just. So you know.”

The door handle stopped.

“Um. What?”

“Naked. Shower. Kind of goes together. My clothes are with my towel on the sink.”

“Why did you leave them there?!”

“It’s where I always leave them! I wasn’t thinking.”

Ryan sighed loud enough for Shane to hear it through the door. “Okay, I’m coming in.”

“Okay.”

Shivering from the cold air on his wet skin, Shane tried valiantly to cover up his dick with his hands, but it was an imperfect concealment. Sometimes, having a dick on the bigger side wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Ryan opened the door and started blindly feeling around on the sink for Shane’s things, knocking his toothbrush onto the floor in the process. Also, he was shirtless for some reason that Shane could not even begin to comprehend.

“Why the hell are _you_ half-naked?”

“I was doing some crunches,” Ryan explained, still prodding his hands around the sink for Shane’s clothes.

“And you have to be shirtless to do that?”

“No, but I like to be,” he shrugged as he upended the toothpaste into the sink.

“Jesus, Ryan, just open your eyes.”

“I’m trying to be considerate!” he explained as his fingers finally closed around the fabric of Shane’s underwear and sweats. “Ah-ha! Okay, heads up!”

“Wait-!”

Ryan flung the clothes forward but Shane wasn’t ready, too preoccupied trying to hide his dick, and they landed in the shower floor by Shane’s feet.

“Now my clothes are wet. That was extremely helpful, thanks,” he said as sarcastically as he possibly could.

Ryan blinked his eyes for just a second before squeezing them shut again. “Shit, sorry, I can grab you some more.”

“First, please _hand_ me my towel like a normal person. I’m freezing my balls off in here.”

Reluctantly, Ryan opened one eye as he stepped further into the bathroom. He grabbed the towel and sidestepped towards the shower, very determinedly not looking at Shane as he held the towel out. Once Shane grabbed it Ryan basically teleported away, and Shane couldn’t help but sigh as he dried himself off. Straight boys.

A couple minutes later, Ryan reappeared with another pair of underwear and some pajama pants Shane had probably worn twice in his life, a fun and tacky Christmas set his mom had given him that were about five inches too short. When Shane only took the underwear, Ryan chanced a quick glance in his direction.

“Take these too.”

“Gimme a damn minute, I gotta get my underwear on first. I don’t exactly have anywhere to set those.”

Ryan’s ears went red as he turned away again. “Oh, right.”

Shane slid his good leg through his briefs, and then his bad one, which was still covered in a wet garbage bag and a bunch of plastic wrap. He thought it was mostly going okay until it was time to pull them all the way up. He couldn’t stand to yank them up those final, precious inches and teetering back and forth in his wet shower chair only did so much. For fuck’s sake.

“Um, Ryan?”

He was standing with his back turned to him. “Yeah?”

“Please don’t freak out but, uhhhhh, you gotta help me here.”

Ryan’s back muscles twitched and goddamn, if this wasn’t about to be the most awkward situation of Shane’s life, he might have had some thoughts about them.

“Help how?” Ryan asked, trying very hard to keep his tone light.

“I need to stand to get my underwear all the way on but I can’t stand on this wet shower floor even with my crutches. So I’m still in a pickle here.”

“So...what do you want me to do?”

Shane thought about it for a second. “If you come over here, I can pull myself up on your stupidly jacked arms with my right foot outside of the shower on dry ground. Then I can grab my crutches, pull my underwear all the way up, and we can pretend this never happened.”

“Christ,” Ryan let out a low sigh. “How did you fuck up taking a shower this badly?”

“Luck. Now, are you going to help me or am I going to shrivel up and die in this chair I just paid forty-two American dollars for?”

Ryan finally turned around. Good God, whatever crunches he was doing really were no joke. Shane had seen him shirtless plenty of times, but not at this close range; even if he had, he definitely did not remember Ryan’s abs looking like _that_. He was like a goddamn Renaissance sculpture.

After setting the crutches up against the door to the shower, Ryan held his forearm out, very pointedly not looking at Shane’s dick area. Shane set his right foot outside the shower, against the bathmat, and curled his hands around Ryan’s arm to heave himself up. He was off-balance and had to grab Ryan’s shoulder to steady himself. As his foot stabilized underneath him, Shane felt fabric slide down his thighs until it rested on top of the wet plastic wrap holding the garbage bag around his cast.

For a brief moment, Shane wondered if perhaps ghosts _were_ real and they’d finally grown sick enough of his shit to, somehow cosmically torture him.

Then Ryan flicked his eyes downward and Shane snapped back to his senses. No, ghosts weren’t real and they weren’t torturing him, this was just his life now. A comedy of errors intertwining him and Ryan, like a neverending sitcom B-plot.

A second after Ryan looked down, his neck snapped back up, way up, so he could study the ceiling. His cheeks were as flushed as Shane had ever seen them, but he knew they had to have nothing on the heat his own face was producing. But Shane was not going to let the most awkward situation in the world defeat him.

Not today, Satan. Not today.

“I gotta lean on you, for a second.”

Ryan full-body twitched. “Hm?”

“Well, I would like to not have my dick out right now, and I think you would, too. I have to lean on you to do that.”

“Ah. Right.”

Shane tightened his fingers around Ryan’s shoulder, although they were all pruny and soft so it was easier said than done.  Next, he reached down with his right hand and pulled his underwear up. His ass was still wet from the shower so they weren’t on perfectly, but he was no longer completely naked in front of his best friend so it was a start.

“You can stop praying to Mothman that he opens a rip in space-time to come rescue you,” Shane said. “The dick is contained.”

Ryan made a funny little noise, like the strained laugh of a concerned goose. “What now? Crutches?”

“Actually, just help me sit on the toilet.”

“DUDE.”

“Not like that!” Shane hurried to explain. “I have to take this garbage bag off, that’s all.”

“You are going to give me a fucking heart attack,” Ryan concluded as he flipped the toilet seat lid down.

“Please, do tell how this is a more humiliating situation for you than me. You’re, at least, mostly dressed,” Shane said as they maneuvered him onto the toilet.

“I didn’t say that,” he mumbled. “It’s just awkward.”

Shane peeled the multiple layers of plastic wrap off, wincing a bit as it pulled at his leg hair. “Yeah, no shit.”

“We’re not going to have to do this every day, are we?”

Shane dumped the wet plastic and garbage bag into the actual garbage. His temporary cast was bone dry, so at least _one_ thing had worked today. “Hopefully not. I think if I leave my towel where I can get to it from in there, it will be fine.”

“But how would you stand up if you can’t put your crutches on the wet floor?” Ryan pointed out.

“Oh, hm.” Shane thought about it for a minute. “I genuinely have no idea.”

Ryan sighed, locking his fingers behind his neck. Shane was sure he was about to tell him “Sorry, man, I’m out. Find someone else to help your naked scrawny ass out of the shower.”

But sometimes Ryan surprised him.

“So, I guess we are going to be doing this every day.”

“Yeah, at least until I figure something else out.” Shane swallowed before adding, “Sorry.”

Ryan dropped his arms, his face softening. “Hey, no, it’s fine. Sorry if I made it weird.”

Shane shrugged. “Kind of impossible for this _not_ to be weird.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “You need anything else?”

Shane grabbed his crutches to stand up. “I think I’m good from here. Thanks, though.”

“Of course,” Ryan said, flashing him a quick smile before heading back out to the living room.

As Shane hopped back to his bedroom to get all the way dressed (it was much easier to do it laying down), he heard the tell-tale sounds of Ryan working out in his living room, strange grunts and all. An old thought about whether Ryan made those kinds of noises during _any_ kind of physical exertion bubbled in Shane’s brain for the first time in months. Shit. Shane was _supposed_ to be over this. He was thirty-two years old, he did not need to be fantasizing about straight guys, let alone one of his best friends.

He was probably just confused. Ryan had been the only consistent thing about the last couple of days and Shane had just seen his six-pack in all its chiseled glory, so it was a totally understandable brain weasel.

“Yeah, it was just a weird, one-off thought. Right, Obi?” Shane mumbled to his cat back on his bed.

Obi stared at him, slowly blinking his eyes.

“Oh, what do you know?” Shane said, giving him a head scratch anyway.

* * *

 So, it turned out unseeing your best friend’s dick was impossible.

It had been almost twenty-four hours and Ryan still couldn’t get the sight out of his head. Shane’s long, longer than Ryan had ever expected, dick hanging between his blindingly pale thighs, mere inches from Ryan’s own.

At first, Ryan blamed the shock of it all on why the image was burned so thoroughly into his brain. But that night, while he was trying to fall asleep on the couch and it was all he could think about, his own dick started to harden and Ryan stopped kidding himself.

His big old fat gay (bi? queer? whatever) crush on Shane was back. And it wasn’t going away that easily.

Even now, while they were waiting at a doctor appointment and Shane was just sitting on an exam table, scrolling through something on his phone, Ryan had an intense need to be up there with him, holding his hand. But instead, he just stayed in his seat, idly wondering how the hell he could bury these feelings before he ruined their friendship.

“Hello, Shane, I’m Dr. Rivera,” a middle-aged woman announced herself, shaking Ryan out of his dumb feelings.

“Hi,” Shane said, shaking her hand.

“So, after looking at your X-rays, we are going to have do surgery and screw a plate in along your break. It only takes a couple hours and we send you home the same day, so the recovery isn’t too bad. I’ve got an opening Friday, how does that sound?”

They had known this was a possibility, the ER staff in Nevada had said as much, but Shane’s shoulders drooped all the same. Now Ryan _really_ wished he was up there holding his hand.

“I don’t have anything else going on,” Shane said, trying to keep it casual and light. “Works for me.”

“Wonderful! We’ll get you straightened up and then your body can work on healing that fracture and your ligaments.”

“Great.”

“My PA will be in shortly to discuss pre-surgery prep, so just sit tight. And I will see you bright and early Friday!” she said, leaving them just as quickly as she’d come in.

“Great,” Shane repeated with no casualness. “Fucking great.”

“I’m sure it’ll go fine. This doctor has got a lot of plaques in here, that’s gotta be good, right?” Ryan said, trying to be reassuring.

The back of his head hit the wall. “Yeah. It’s just more shit to deal with, though.”

Ryan’s legs carried him the few feet over next to Shane before his brain even realized that he had stood up. “I’ll help, you know that, right?”

Shane turned his head towards him, his eyes soft. “I know.”

Fuck it, Ryan was going to go for it, he just wanted Shane to feel okay and go back to giving him shit all the time. But right as Ryan’s fingers were about to touch Shane’s, the exam room door opened again and he stuffed them in pants pocket instead.

Ryan really hated what a coward he was.

The PA went over all the pre-surgery basics with Shane. When to stop eating, when to stop drinking water, when to be at the hospital, what to wear and what not to wear, all that kind of stuff.

“Any questions?”

“Yeah, when can I go back to work?”

“What kind of work do you do?”

Shane and Ryan shared a significant look. Always a weird question to answer.

“I have a YouTube show where me and this guy go hunting for ghosts that don’t exist.”

Ryan shook his head. Of course he had to answer it in the weirdest way possible.

The PA was not amused, staring at Shane over the rims of his glasses. “Well, I don’t know how much ghost hunting you can do when you are not going to be weight-bearing for six-to-eight weeks. Is that _all_ you do?”

Shane cleared his throat, a little thrown by someone not finding his particular brand of bullshit amusing. If Ryan hadn’t been in the middle of feeling bad for him, he would have found it hilarious. “I also do a lot of work on the computer.”

“As long as you can keep your leg elevated, that should be fine as soon as you feel ready for it. No driving, though, for a week after surgery. And you will have someone to stay with you the night of? In case of any complications?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, raising his hand.

“Very good. Any other questions?”

“Is it okay to go to a movie theater?”

 _Oh Shane_ , Ryan thought to himself. He didn’t have to wonder what he was talking about.

“Like I said, as long as that leg stays elevated it should be fine, although it may not be very comfortable for you.”

“Yeah, okay.”

The PA left soon after that, having given Shane a bunch of paperwork and reminders.

“I love that your priorities are work and Mission Impossible,” Ryan told him once they were alone again.

“I’m a simple man, Ryan,” Shane explained. “I love work because it allows me to buy things, like tickets to see Tommy Cruise jump out of an airplane.”

“Glad you’re gonna be able to do both, then.”

His smile faltered a bit. “Yeah, but I’m going to miss the Post-Mortem this week, and it’s the first Hot Daga of the new season!”

“Oh, well, we’ll have to move it back to Monday for this one anyway, since I won’t be at work either. Maybe you’ll be feeling up for it then?”

“You’re going to take the whole day off?” Shane asked, his eyebrows raising in surprise.

Ryan returned his raised eyebrows. “Yeah? What, you think I’m going to leave you home alone the day you get sliced open?”

“I dunno, I didn’t want to assume.”

“Please. And miss out on whatever shit comes out of your mouth when you’re high off anesthesia? No way,” he grinned.

“You’ll have to record me in case there are any gems,” Shane grinned back.

“That is a terrible idea on your part and I’m absolutely going to do it.”

After Shane’s appointment was over, Ryan dropped him off back at his apartment before heading into work for a few hours. He was anxious over leaving Shane alone (what if he fell and Ryan wasn’t there to catch him?), but Shane insisted he was just going to nap anyway.

At the office, Ryan was bombarded by not only all of his and Shane’s friends, but pretty much everyone who worked there, asking about Shane and volunteering to bring them food or booze or weed or a combination of all three. Ryan filmed as many of them as he could sending well-wishes, but he finally had to stick his headphones on to get some real work done. With Shane out of commission for the next couple of months, he was going to have to completely restructure their shooting schedule. Move out the Supernatural location episodes, maybe bank some extra True Crime ones, research some Supernatural ideas that could be done in the studio, and so on. It was a giant pain, but Ryan appreciated the distraction. This had been the longest he’d gone without thinking about Shane’s giant, not unattractive dick since yesterday.

But that night, the story was very different. He was showing Shane some of the videos he’d taken with their coworkers when it happened.

“Let’s see, who was after Freddie and Kristin, oh yeah, Kelsey,” Ryan said, swiping through his videos. He and Shane were on the couch bed finishing up some reruns of The Office.

Shane leaned over, resting on his elbow to get a better look. “Which Kelsey?”

“Sims Kelsey, although Florida Kelsey is on one of these, too.”

“Wow, how many of these did you take?”

“Like ten or so? I had to start turning people away, though. You are quite beloved by our coworkers,” Ryan said as he hit play. Shane grabbed the back of the phone to angle it towards himself better, his fingers laying on top of Ryan’s.

“ _Hi, Shane! Hope you feel better soon so we can film some more of you controlling Sim-Ryan and his ghost girlfriend! We miss you!”_

“Aw, she’s so sweet,” Shane smiled. He had not let go of the phone and Ryan could feel his heart inching up his throat. “Who was next?”

“Um, Jen, I think.”

He swiped to the next video, and no, it was Curly, but he stopped paying attention because Ryan’s dick was doing a thing that he very much did not want it to be doing. _C’mon buddy, not while he’s in the same room!_

It only took a minute or so for Shane to finish watching his videos, but it was enough time for Ryan’s mind to wander back to that indelible image of Shane’s dick. And then a new image-- well, more of a gif, really--of Shane’s fingers on said dick, stroking it. Oh Christ, this was bad. No, Ryan, think of something the opposite of Shane...basketball! No, wait, shit, Pau Gasol-Shane connection. Um, spreadsheets! Functional, useful, yet unsexy. That should do it.

“Uh, Ryan?” Shane waved his hand in front of Ryan’s face. “You in there?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, sorry. Spaced out for a second,” he said, not untruthfully. “Wanna keep watching? I think the Dinner Party episode is next.”

“Think I’m gonna hit the hay, sorry,” Shane said, scooting over to the edge of the pull-out. “These pain meds make me so sleepy, but only for like two hours at a time. It’s really inconvenient.”

“It’s cool. You need anything?”

“I think I’m okay, but thanks.”

Ryan watched as Shane hobbled back to his room, his spreadsheet thoughts shapeshifting back to dick thoughts. Jesus Christ, he had to get a handle on this. He was here to _help_ Shane, not leer after him when he was at his most vulnerable. Maybe if he just focused on that, on purely helping Shane around, maybe he could train his dick to calm the fuck down.

Ryan turned over on the pull-out mattress to find Obi staring at him from the armrest.

“Hey, go sleep with your dad. You make my eyes itchy.”

Obi did not obey, reaching out with his paw to lightly bat Ryan’s nose instead.

“Hey! What did I just say?”

“ _Mrow._ ”

With a sigh, Ryan scratched the cat’s ears. “You Madej boys are going to be the end of me, for very different reasons.”


	4. Chapter 4

Of all the things that sucked about having a broken leg, the food situation was the least expected and almost the most annoying. (Showers still had the top spot there.)

Ryan had filled a mini-cooler with some drinks and sandwich fixings and left them by Shane’s bed, so he wouldn’t have to attempt to carry anything with his crutches, but after three full days of ham sandwiches he was pretty ready to never eat one again.

He had tried to microwave some popcorn one time, when he was in between episodes of The Great British Bake-Off, but he’d dropped the bag in the hallway and almost fell while attempting to pick it up, so he reluctantly had to leave it there.

But in the evenings, Ryan could bring him food, whether it was takeout or some reheated leftovers Ryan’s mom had dropped off, and Shane found himself counting down the minutes until he got home every day. It wasn’t just about having a hot meal, though. Being stuck at home with only a cat for company was already starting to wear on him. Shane was a pretty social guy, used to working around lots of people, and all that alone time made him crave Ryan’s presence even more than usual.

At least, that’s what he hold himself as he anxiously started watching the clock once it was after 5pm every day.

It had nothing to do with the fact that Ryan often came home lugging a bunch of get well gifts or groceries, the muscles of his biceps straining against the sleeves of his t-shirt. Or the fact that he’d also brought over that stupid pull-up exercise thing that now hung in the doorway of Shane’s office and every night he’d do a bunch of reps mere feet away from Shane’s bedroom, grunting like he was getting the best blowjob of his life. And it absolutely had nothing to do with Ryan being an unexpectedly great caretaker, always making sure Shane had an unimpeded path around the apartment, never complaining about having to do all the dishes or chores that Shane no longer could, even cleaning Obi’s litterbox despite the fact that it made his eyes water. No, no, it was definitely just about Shane being lonely and wanting stove-popped popcorn. That was it.

The morning of his surgery, Shane was already awake when he heard Ryan futzing about in the kitchen. All week sleep had been fickle, coming on suddenly or not coming at all, and the night before he was due to get his ankle sliced open was no different. Shane wasn’t really all that anxious about the actual procedure, he just wanted it to be over and done with so he could get back to his life. It had only been a week but he was already over this whole broken ankle ordeal.

The drive to the hospital was quiet, both Shane and Ryan too sleepy to make any real conversation. Even with the seat pushed all the way back, he was still cramped, not being able to do anything with his left leg except just rest it against the floor in one position. Being so tall, he was used to not fitting into the world, and adding a thick, heavy cast to that only exacerbated it.

Even the wheelchair the hospital brought out for him was shaped so generically that Shane’s knees bumped up awkwardly against each other, not to the mention the hospital bed that was _just_ long enough to fit him. At least the hospital gown was enough of a smock to cover him adequately.

“Here, catch,” Shane said with no warning, tossing his underwear at Ryan, who contorted his body into a misshapen pretzel to avoid it, but the briefs still landed on his lap.

“Dude, gross!” he protested, jumping to his feet, letting Shane’s underwear fall to the floor.

Shane smirked lazily, pulling the hospital blanket over his lap and good leg. “Now you gotta pick ‘em up.”

Ryan glared at him, a contemptuous stare that if he was less sleep-deprived would have been full of daggers, but at 5:39 in the morning was mostly just butter knives. “Is there a reason you couldn’t just _hand_ them to me like you did your other clothes? Or, better yet, just toss them into the bag?”

He held up the large plastic bag the hospital had provided, wiggling it in Shane’s direction.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

With a grumble, Ryan pulled Shane’s t-shirt out of the bag to pick up the underwear with it, acting like they were radioactive.

“You should probably be a little nicer to the guy who could potentially film you super high on meds, you know.”

“Like I said before, be my guest. I bet there will be comedy gold in those there Percocet hills.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

Shane’s nurse came back shortly after that and readied him for an IV, using the side of his left wrist instead of the back of his hand this time. He watched in fascination as she did it so easily, only wincing as the needle went in. Ryan buried his nose in his phone until she was done.

“Ah, I forgot your needle phobia, among your many other nonsense phobias,” Shane said, resting back against flat hospital pillow.

“Being a little freaked out by needles is normal, very unlike your extremely specific fear of _heroin_ needles.”

“Come on, that would be terrifying, right? Someone just jumping out and plunging heroin into your arm? You gotta give me that.”

“Yeah, except that it would _never ever_ happen, you weirdo.”

“Yeah, and neither will ghosts ripping your eyes out, but guess who is still afraid of that?”

The nurse laughed exasperatedly from Shane’s left side as she hooked up the IV and various heart and system monitors. “My, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of either of those fears before.”

“Do you have an opinion on which is scarier? It’s mine, right? Since ghosts aren’t even real,” Shane asked her.

“Oh, ghosts are very real, in my experience. I’ll never forget the day after my great-grandmother’s funeral when I was a kid. I was in our living room, alone, and her picture fell right off the wall. No windows were open and nothing else fell. I know that it was her saying goodbye.”

Shane opened his mouth to very reasonably tell her that pictures fall off walls all the time due to old nails and gravity, but Ryan beat him.

“That’s amazing! Could you sense that it was her?”

She nodded. “Oh yes. I even got a whiff of the perfume she always wore.”

“Did you check the wall after the picture fell? Was the nail still there?” Shane asked, desperate to bring some scientific method to this conversation before it went totally off the rails.

“Oh, who can remember?” she waved him off. “Alright, I’ll be back in a bit.”

As she left, Ryan stretched out his legs to prop them up on the end of Shane’s bed, his arms behind his head.

“Score another win for the Boogaras,” he said smugly.

“Please. There are a dozen reasons why pictures fall, and she probably had the perfume smell on her mind since it was the day after the funeral. That’s hardly a win.”

“You can’t just admit it when you’re wrong, can you?”

Shane folded his arms across his chest, despite it tugging on his IV. “Well, I’m not wrong, so what am I supposed to admit?”

“Not listening, too busy picturing your face when she said ghosts were real,” Ryan sighed dreamily, closing his eyes. If Shane wasn’t so annoyed with him at the moment it would have been quite the sight, seeing Ryan all stretched out like that. Okay, it was still something, because Shane didn’t immediately register the anesthesiologist enter the room to get him ready for the surgery.

“Guess it’s time for me to head back downstairs,” Ryan proclaimed, hoisting both his laptop bag and the plastic bag of Shane’s clothes around his arms. “Good luck, man.”

He reached down to squeeze Shane’s right wrist, giving him a reassuring smile. For the first time all morning, a twinge of nerves twisted themselves up in Shane’s stomach.

“You too.”

“Me? You’re the one getting cut open.”

“Yeah, but all I have to do the next few hours is sleep. You have to entertain yourself without driving everyone else in the waiting room crazy,” he said.

“I’ll be fine, I’m gonna work.”

“Suuuuure you will.”

“Whatever. You’ll see,” he said, turning to leave.

“Hey Ryan,” Shane called out for him. “Thanks for...just, well, thanks.”

He smiled again, a softer turn of the lips than before. “Of course. Ghoul Boys, ride or die.”

“Ride or die.”

Shane watched as a nurse pointed Ryan back towards the waiting room, subconsciously touching the inside of his right wrist. He still wasn’t quite used to Ryan all of a sudden being so touchy-feely, but he sure didn’t hate it.

After talking to various doctors and specialists and signing some consent forms and picking out what color he wanted his cast to be, Shane was finally wheeled into a brightly lit, stark white operating room. This was it, the final countdown, but he didn’t have any nerves about it. In fact, all he was thinking about when a nurse placed a plastic mask over his nose and mouth was Ryan’s warm fingers pressed against his wrist. He should remember to ask Ryan why he did that, just...after he closed his eyes. Just for a bit.

* * *

 Becoming a ghost hunter had done a lot for Ryan. Allowed him to travel around the country, make a TV show he loved, spend time with his best friend. Toughened him up, even. But one thing it had not done was teach him patience.

He knew that Shane’s surgery would last a couple hours, not including all the time Ryan would be down in the waiting area while Shane finished getting prepped to go in, so he had brought his laptop to get some much needed work done, along with some snacks and the newest issue of Sports Illustrated. He was ready for these few hours to fly on by.

Unfortunately, after forty-five minutes, he was already a dangerous combination of antsy and bored.

It wasn’t that he had run out of things to do, far from it, but he couldn’t keep his mind focused. It didn’t help that literally all of his work involved Shane in some way (signing off on edits to Unsolved, doing research for Unsolved, rescheduling location shoots to accommodate Shane being out of commission, etc.), and just thinking about him made his gut seize up with worry. Ryan knew he was being ridiculous, but he was a worrier by nature and that sure as hell wasn’t going to change in the next two hours.

He flipped through the magazine, but none of the long articles really caught his eyes. He tried to nap, hoping his body’s need for more than four hours of sleep would override his brain, but it didn’t work.

This was so stupid, Shane would be _fine_. Surgery was a big deal but it wasn’t like the 1800s or whatever, when someone just handed you a stick to bite down on. And it was just on his ankle, none of his important guts or anything. _Jesus, Ryan, just calm the fuck down and focus on work._

He pulled up some of the raw footage from the Forrest Fenn episode that they had thankfully shot just a week before Shane fell down the stairs. It was going to be the True Crime season finale, so he had some time on it, but it had been so much fun that he thought immersing himself back in it would help focus his mind.

 _“All right, you ready to go?”_ on-screen Ryan said, triumphantly emerging from the Best Western bathroom dressed as his fictional hero, Indiana Jones. Damn, that had been fun. Ryan really needed to make sure he found ways for them both to dress up again next season.

As he watched, his eyes flickered to Shane in his stupid practical hat and vest and stupid impractical facial hair. He remembered Shane laughing at him, poking fun at his treasure hunting cosplay, but watching it now...Shane didn’t laugh, not at first. He just stared at Ryan, dumbstruck, something that was about as rare as a solar eclipse. Ryan’s mouth went dry, observing those few seconds where Shane watched him don his leather jacket.

That didn’t mean anything, though, right? He was probably just surprised by Ryan going to such lengths for the gag. But still, the way Shane’s mouth hung open, eyeing Ryan...it was something.

Great, now Ryan was anxious for a whole bunch of new reasons.

After buying more snacks and some spectacularly shitty coffee, Ryan finally closed the Fenn footage to answer some emails. Well, he didn’t close it, exactly. He just minimized the tab in his video editing software. Same thing.

Eventually, enough time went by that Ryan was actually surprised to see Dr. Rivera approach him in the waiting room.

“You’re Shane’s friend, correct?”

He slipped his headphones off, heart automatically leaping into his throat. “Yeah.”

“Well, everything went great. The plate and screws holding his break went in smoothly, and we were able to position his ankle in his new cast so that his torn ligaments will regrow and become friends again.”

A bunch of happy bumblebees started buzzing in Ryan’s head. He had never heard such great news in his entire life. “That’s amazing!”

She smiled kindly. “They should be waking him up soon, you’ll get a text when it’s alright for you to go back up to see him and give him his clothes and everything.”

Ryan was already packing up his laptop. “Great, thanks!”

“Do you have any questions for me? Or do you know if Shane had any?”

He paused. “Um, I don’t think he had any, at least not that I know of.”

“Well, he can call my office if he does. Just make sure he drinks plenty of water and takes his pain medication as directed, he’ll be fine.”

“I will.”

Dr. Rivera began to step away when Ryan suddenly remembered something. “Oh, um, wait, I do have a question.”

“Ask away.”

“Shane kind of sucks at crutches. Can he get anything else?”

“Oh, yes, of course! If you can find a place that rents knee scooters, those are great for mobility, although with his long legs they could be a bit tricky. I could also put in an order to send a walker home with him today, if you think he’d be better at that?”

“Honestly, it can’t hurt.”

“I’ll do that then.”

Not long after that, Ryan got a text saying he could come up to the recovery room, with directions on how to find it. He readied his phone’s camera, just in case stoned-on-anesthesia Shane was Instagram—or blackmail—worthy.

As he approached the large open room with dozens of vaguely ugly curtains separating patients, he could hear Shane already.

“Ooh, yeah, he’s the best. Didja know he carried me down the stairs when I did this? Me! I’m like, seven….? Inches taller than him. But he carried me! Like I was a precious newborn human baby. Can you believe that?”

“Wow, that’s amazing!” an extremely friendly voice answered him as Ryan pulled back the appropriate curtain.

“Hey! There he is! Speak ‘o the devil. Which, wait, does that offend you? ‘Cause of your demon fears and such?”

Ryan pressed record on his phone as he grinned at an extremely smiley and sleepy-eyed Shane, resting against his hospital bed. His leg was encased in a regular black cast, his toes sticking out of the end.

“No, doesn’t offend me,” Ryan clarified, stepping up next to him, angling the phone down by his side to hopefully get as much of this as possible. “How do you feel, big guy?”

“Feelin’ pretty good, actually. Pretty good,” he answered, overemphasizing the syllables to an exaggerated degree. “How ‘bout you? Feelin’ good, baby?”

Ryan sputtered as Shane reached out towards Ryan’s head, inadvertently knocking his baseball cap off.

“Whoops, butter fingers.”

“What were you even trying to do?” Ryan asked, picking up his hat.

“I just wanted to touch your hair but I forgot you had a hat on. You gotta remember, I don’t have glasses or contacts right now, so you’re just sort of a Ryan-shaped blur.”

Shane made some vague hand gestures while Ryan tried to wrap his mind around why Shane would want to touch his hair in the first place.

“I’ve got your glasses, do you want them back?”

“Oh, yes! See, I toldja, he’s my hero,” Shane said to his nurse.

Ryan pulled Shane’s glasses out of the plastic bag, his entire face burning. Okay, so stoned-on-pain-meds Shane was significantly more touchy-feely than regular stoned Shane, who mostly just rambled on about the artistic importance of the Mission Impossible movies and ate entire boxes of microwave popcorn.

The nurse smiled at Shane like a kindergarten teacher would to one of his students. “You did! I’m glad to meet him.” He nodded at Ryan, adding in a knowing tone, “You were the first thing he asked about when he woke up.”

Well, if Ryan’s face wasn’t on fire before, it certainly was now. “Really?”

“Yup. He wanted to know where you were.”

“I was in the waiting room, remember?” Ryan said to Shane as he handed his glasses to him. He put them on, and they were less askew than Ryan predicted.

“Oh yeah! I forgot,” Shane yawned, falling back against his pillow. “I’m so tired.”

“I bet. Does your leg feel different in that cast?”

“They numbed it so I don’t really feel anything at all.” He started laughing, a very goofy chuckle escaping his lips. “It’s like I’m wearin’ nothin’ at all. Nothin’ at all. Nothin’ at all.”

“Are you quoting The Simpsons right now?”

Shane continued to giggle. “Nothin’ at all.”

Ryan and the nurse shared a knowing glance. “Trust me, I’ve seen worse,“ he whispered.

“I can only imagine.”

“Hey, Ryan, hey,” Shane said suddenly, reaching for Ryan’s hand that wasn’t holding his phone. He haphazardly twisted his fingers around Ryan’s, loosely holding onto them when he was done. “Can I ask you something?”

Ryan swallowed, completely bewildered by literally everything happening right now. “Yeah.”

“Why did you hold my wrist before surgery?”

“I...I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. He’d done it so automatically, he had almost forgotten about it. “I’m sorry.”

“Nooooo! No, don’t be!” Shane shook his head resolutely, briefly tightening his hold on Ryan’s fingers. “It felt nice. Your hands feel nice.”

“I, um, okay,” he stammered, still unsure of what to make of all this. “Is that why, um, this?” He asked, wiggling his hand that Shane had his long fingers wrapped around.

“Yeah! If it doesn’t, like, you know, weird you out or anything.”

“It’s fine.”

“Phew, good,” Shane smiled up at him. “Hard to tell with you straight boys.”

Ryan’s stomach flipped, knowing that that was probably not the right adjective for him anymore but not being able to say it. “Heh, yeah, I guess.”

The nurse had to interrupt them after that, going over a big packet of paper with post-surgery care instructions, some physical therapy exercises, and the dangers of pain medication. Shane eventually dropped his hold on Ryan’s hand, but he kept it close.

“Alright, you should start to feel back to normal soon, but your leg will still be numb for awhile since they blocked your nerves. It’ll probably be painful when the feeling comes back, so take it easy, okay?”

“Got it,” Shane said, his eyes more tired than loopy now. “I’m still so sleepy, ugh, I dread crutching it up back to the apartment.”

“Oh hey, that reminds me. I asked your doctor, they’re gonna give you a walker to use when we leave. See if that’s easier,” Ryan told him.

“Wait, really? I can use one of those?” he asked, his eyes briefly widening.

“You can try, I guess. Can’t hurt.”

Shane’s wrist flicked up to brush his fingers against Ryan’s again. “Always looking out for me, huh?”

Warmth spread across Ryan’s face, but not from embarrassment. “Yup.”

It took around forty-five minutes for Shane to officially be discharged and released, and Ryan could tell all the good time happy meds were beginning to wear off. Every bit of movement, from getting redressed to sliding into a hospital wheelchair, was filled with sluggishness, like he was moving in slow motion. Shane didn’t complain, though; instead he just asked Ryan to take him to whatever fast food place with a drive-thru was closest.

“It’s McDonald’s, is that good?”

“Airport hot dogs would be good, right now, so yes,” Shane said, holding his forehead in his right hand, his elbow propped up on the car windowsill.

“You okay?” Ryan asked, tentatively reaching for Shane’s other hand but stopping before skin touched skin.

Shane shifted in his seat, trying to get comfortable, unknowingly moving his hand away from Ryan’s. Ryan yanked his own hand back onto his steering wheel. “Just tired. And achy. And hungry. And wishing there were car designers over six feet tall.”

The drive to McDonald’s, and then back to Shane’s apartment, was quiet, the only noise being Shane savagely shoving french fries into his mouth. Ryan wanted to give him shit for it but the mood didn’t feel right.

Once they were back at Shane’s apartment complex, Ryan helped him out of the car, using the walker this time instead of crutches. He took a couple small, wobbly steps, the plastic wheels scraping against the ground.

“Better or worse?”

“Both,” Shane grunted, taking another tentative step towards the door. “My armpits appreciate the break, but the grips are harder than the crutches have. And it’s really fucking hard to keep my leg up. But,” he lifted his left hand off of the walker to give Ryan a small wave. “I can maybe, you know, do things while standing now.”

“Great! Now put your hand back down before you fall again and I have a stroke.”

“Okay, _mom_.”

Ryan let him have that as he gathered up all the crap they had stuffed in the back of Ryan’s car. His laptop bag, Shane’s crutches, their fast food, and a giant foam wedge pillow the hospital gave Shane to prop his leg up on. He was able to get everything but their drinks in one go, even if he sort of looked like The Junk Lady from Labyrinth.

Shane was still trucking along towards the elevator at a lethargic turtle’s pace. Ryan was tempted to offer to carry him again, but that would be way too weird. Instead, he took the extra time to grab Shane’s mail, which today included a large package that was propped up by the complex’s mailboxes. He’d have to get it when he came back for the drinks, but he went ahead and read the “From” written in neat cursive in the top left corner.

“Mark and Sherry Madej

AKA Dad and Mom”

Well, if this wouldn’t make Shane feel better, nothing would.

* * *

 One step.

_This is fucking impossible. I’ll never make it back to my apartment._

Another step.

_No, I can do this. Just another ten feet to the elevator and then twenty five or so after that._

Step. A hand, slick from greasy fries, slipped around the hard plastic grip, but his other held on enough to stay upright.

_I hate this, I hate this, I hate this._

“You good?”

“Yeah,” Shane swallowed thickly. “Go on ahead, this will take me awhile.”

“I’m not leaving you, it’s fine. Take your time.”

Shane almost wished Ryan would leave him alone so he could suffer in solitude. But no, of course he was going to stay and watch over him like a particularly small but powerful hawk. He suddenly vaguely remembered talking to his post-op nurse about Ryan, calling him his “hero”. Jesus, had Ryan heard that? He couldn’t remember when he’d shown up, that twenty minutes or so all blurred together in his mind.

Taking either a couple minutes or a half hour, Shane wasn’t sure, he finally made it back up to his apartment. However, he did not make it back to his bed, collapsing on the pull-out couch Ryan had been sleeping on all week.

“Sorry, I’m bogarting your bed until further notice,” he said, reaching out for his bag of food.

Ryan handed it to him while also dropping pretty much everything else his stupidly strong arms were carrying. “S’okay. I gotta go grab the drinks, be back in a sec.”

“Got it.”

Shane tore into his burger with reckless abandon, spilling grease onto his shirt. He just wanted to destroy this disgusting yet delicious food and then fall back asleep for approximately three thousand years. His ankle would be healed by then, right?

As Shane was licking Big Mac sauce off his fingers like an animal, Ryan reappeared, but not just with drinks. He also had a hefty box under one arm.

“What’s that?”

Ryan dumped the box on the edge of the couch bed, away from Shane’s feet, before setting the sodas on an end table. “It’s from your parents.”

A lump the size of a tennis ball formed in Shane’s throat. With everything going on, he’d forgotten that his mom had promised him a care package. Of course it would come today, she always had a knack for stuff like that.

Abandoning his food, Shane tried to rip open the box, but he was too weak to snap the packing tape. Ryan Bergara was not; without a word, he pulled the flaps apart with ease.

Inside were about twenty Reese’s candy bars, a couple various bags of gummy animals, boxes and bags of popcorn, crossword puzzle and sudoku books, a pack of metallic Sharpies, a book on Al Capone, sheepskin crutch-covers, and two cards, one for Shane, and one for Ryan.

“Holy shit, this is amazing!” Ryan said, picking through the chocolate and candy.

“I told you they were saints,” Shane said quietly, opening his card. It was a cute get well soon card, a cartoon cheetah wishing him a speedy recovery on the front, with personalized notes from both his parents inside. Fuck, he always forgot how much he missed them until they did stuff like this. He couldn’t try to hide the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes even if he wanted to.

The mattress shifted underneath him and a hand curled around his shoulder.

“They say nice things?” Ryan asked softly.

“Yeah. Mom and dad stuff, y’know?” Shane let out a ragged breath, hoping to steady himself. “Did you see yours?”

“What? Why do I have one?”

“Probably a thank you card. Sherry Madej is single-handedly keeping Hallmark in business.”

Ryan let go of Shane’s shoulder to open the card, and yup, in giant, colorful block letters were the words THANK YOU! printed on the front. As Ryan read the inscription, the apples of his cheeks flushed.

“Oh no, what did she say?” Shane asked, reaching for the card, but Ryan nimbly kept it out of reach.

“Nothing. Just thanked me for taking care of you.”

“Ryan. This is _my_ mother. I think I can tell when she’s written something embarrassing about me.”

“She didn’t. She’s just...very sweet,” Ryan mumbled, tossing the card aside so he could occupy himself with some gummy worms.

Curiosity got the better of him, and Shane picked up the card to read it.

_Ryan -_

_We can’t thank you enough for helping Shane through his injury. Of course it would happen right before we leave for Italy for three weeks! Anyway, I know we haven’t met in person but I feel like I know you from your show and the way he talks about you and I wouldn’t trust anyone else out there to take care of him in a time like this. I hope he and Obi don’t drive you too crazy with all their demands! :)_

__\- Sherry_ _

_PS the popcorn and sweets are for_ _both_ _of you, enjoy!_

Shane glanced over at Ryan, who was very studiously pretending to read the back of the gummy worm packaging, his cheeks still flushed.

“Ryan?”

“Hm?”

“Can I get some of those?”

“Sure.”

Ryan finally looked up, passing the candy to him, and Shane felt like he needed to say something. To clarify that, yeah, he talked to his mom about Ryan, but not in a weird way. Just in a...this is the person I work with and hang out with all the time way. But as he fished out a green and red worm, the words didn’t come.

Ryan didn’t say anything either, as he munched on chicken nuggets and high fructose corn syrup. Shane did notice that he set his card upright on the coffee table, which had been shoved towards the wall to make room for the couch to pull out.

After they finished eating, Ryan gathered up the care package and took it into Shane’s room. Shane was planning on following him, so he could properly crash in his bed, but the numbing medicine they had used during his surgery was wearing off, and every minute bit of movement made him hiss in pain.

“I’m sorry, I’ll limp back in there later. You can watch TV in there or work in my office, make yourself at home,” he apologized after pleading his case to Ryan.

“No worries, man, get some rest,” Ryan said as he looped his laptop bag over his shoulder. “Holler if you need me.”

He left, turning off the lights and softly shutting the door to the office. Shane turned his head to the side, nosing the pillow in an attempt to will himself to sleep. Even though he was exhausted on every possible level, the throbbing in his ankle would not allow him to go down gently. Goddammit, he just wanted to sleep, why couldn’t he just go to sleep?

The mattress dipped, but not with the weight of a grown man. Shane peeked his eyes open to see Obi padding towards him, eventually stepping onto Shane’s chest to stare at him face to face.

“Oof, hey buddy,” he said softly, giving him a head scratch. “You gonna help me sleep?”

Obi just purred, lightly kneading against the soft fabric of Shane’s t-shirt.

“I’ll take that as a maybe.”

As Shane focused on the steady purr of his cat, his eyes finally became too heavy to keep open. He fell asleep.

* * *

 When he awoke, Shane was so disoriented that it took him a solid thirty seconds to realize where he was and why he was there. He had dreamt about going to McDonald’s to buy sentient gummy worms in an attempt to free them, and the bits where he walked were so _real_ that he forgot that he couldn’t actually currently do that until he shifted his left leg and the terrible reality all came rushing back to him.

Blindly he reached for both his phone and his glasses, knocking the latter off onto the floor from his end table. Whatever. With a bleary blink, he checked the time and was shocked that it was after 6pm. He hadn’t slept that continuously all week.

Realizing he needed to pee, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed to stand. The bright, hissing pain at his incision site made him rethink that immediately, and he had to pivot it back up onto his new fancy wedge pillow. Well, that was new and horrible.

But shit, he really had to pee. Maybe if he stood up really fast, it would be better. Or, at least, it would get him to the bathroom quicker.

With a Ryan Bergara-style grunt, he pulled himself up onto his right foot with his walker, crying out as the hissing returned with full force. But he was standing, that was the important part. Just a few steps to the bathroom and then a few back, that was all he had to do.

As he took his first wobbly step, the door to his office burst open.

“Shane! You okay?!” Ryan asked, his headphones askew on top of his head and his eyes wide with worry.

“Yeah, just stings,” he explained through gritted teeth.

“You need any help?”

“I have to take a piss, so unless you want to help with that…”

Ryan grimaced, stepping back inside the office. “Ugh, c’mon.”

“Hey, you asked.”

A few agonizing minutes later, Shane finally made it to the bathroom and did his business, and now that he was closer to his bedroom than the living room he had a new destination. But fucking hell, those ten or fifteen feet felt like that goddamn Sahara desert for how long it took him to get there and how painful every second was. The second he rolled onto his bed he knew there was no way he was getting back up again tonight, except for bathroom trips.

“Ryan…?” he called out, embarrassed by having to ask for completely reasonable help.

A few loud footsteps later, his head poked into Shane’s doorway. “Yeah?”

“Can you bring all my crap from the living room in here? Pillow, phone, glasses, that stuff?”

“Sure.”

“And some water? And popcorn?”

“Stove or microwave?”

“Stove-top, please.”

Ryan quickly brought him everything but the popcorn and returned with that about ten minutes later, piping hot from Shane’s designated big plastic popcorn bowl.

“Here you go,” Ryan said, handing it to him, the heat nice and cozy against Shane’s hands.

“Thanks.” He popped a couple in his mouth, gasping when he realized how hot they still were. Good, though.

“You okay?” Ryan asked, hiding a chuckle.

“Yeah,” he coughed. “You want some?”

“Okay, let me go grab a bowl.”

“No, I meant, like,” Shane shook the bowl in his direction and then at the empty spot next to him in bed. “You want some while we Netflix and...hang?”

A small wrinkle formed on Ryan’s forehead, one Shane recognized from late night editing sessions, when he wasn’t sure which cut to go with.

“Yeah, sure.”

He walked to the other side of the bed, sliding on top of the sheets as Shane set the popcorn bowl between them. Shane pulled up his Netflix account and clicked on his next episode of Bake-Off.

“I can’t believe you’ve gotten so into this,” Ryan commented as soothing images of British pastures filled the screen. “Do you even bake?”

“Not really, but it’s nice. Everyone helps each other and, I dunno, I don’t have to think about it too hard. I’m not really in the mood for a gritty prestige drama, you know?”

“I guess that makes sense.”

They watched a bunch of British amateur bakers do the dreaded bread week while Ryan idly told Shane about work stuff he’d missed, both important and not. Eventually the bowl was left with only kernels, and Shane’s eyes were getting heavy again.

“I’ll let you sleep,” Ryan said as Shane slid further down his headboard.

“Wait,” Shane stopped him. “Is Obi in here?”

“No, why?”

“Dang. I think I only slept so long earlier ‘cause I could focus on his breathing.”

He cringed as soon as he said it, realizing how stupid it sounded. “If that makes sense,” he added quickly.

If Ryan thought it was dumb, he didn’t act like it. “I can look for him, but I don’t know if he’ll let me pick him up or anything.”

“No, it’s fine. I was probably just wiped from surgery anyway.”

Ryan grabbed the popcorn bowl and set it on the floor. To Shane’s surprise, he didn’t leave the bed.

“Um. If you need some noise to focus on...I’m not a cat but I do breathe.”

Shane’s eyes had been half-closed, but they flew open like a Looney Tunes character at that. “...Yeah, you do breathe, Ryan.”

“Sorry, that was a stupid idea. I’ll go,” he said quickly, standing up.

“No, wait. Maybe…maybe it could work.”

Ryan laid back down, his head on the pillow next to Shane’s. “Is this close enough?”

Shane closed his eyes, straining to hear his breath, but it was too faint. “No.”

He felt Ryan scoot in closer until their shoulders were touching. “Now?”

The soft inhales and exhales of Ryan’s breath filled his ears. “Yeah.”

As they laid there, Shane could feel how stiff Ryan’s arm was against his own, his hand clenched into a fist.

“Ryan, you don’t have to do this. I’ll be fine,” Shane told him, peeking one eye open.

“No, I don’t mind. I’m good,” Ryan said with a reassuring smile.

He nodded towards Ryan’s closed fist. “You don’t seem good.”

Ryan loosened his grip sheepishly. “Oh, um. I was just trying to stay still and not rustle your sheets or anything.”

“Well, you’re no good to me if you’re uncomfortable, so maybe this just won’t work.”

He shifted and Shane was sure it was to roll out of bed, but no, Ryan instead turned on his side, with his face facing Shane’s. “There. Can you still hear me?”

Shane swallowed, shutting his eyes so he wouldn’t be tempted to get lost in Ryan’s face being so close. “Yeah.”

Callused fingertips pressed themselves against the crook of Shane’s elbow. “Does this help too?”

“Um, yeah. How did you-?”

“You told me. Do you not remember? When you were all stoned after surgery?”

Shane cringed. “Ah, shit. I do, now. I’m sorry, this is probably all too weird.”

The fingers made small circles against Shane’s skin. “Maybe, but I’ve got Sherry Madej counting on me. I can’t disappoint her.”

Shane couldn’t help but smile at that. “Don’t worry, she’d be very pleased.”

“Good. Now, go to sleep.”

“Yessir.”

With Ryan’s breath and touch to focus on, sleep came faster than it had in days for Shane, even easier than with Obi on his chest. He was probably going to regret it in the morning when Ryan would inevitably make some awkward joke about it, but for now he could get used to this.

* * *

 As Ryan watched Shane sleep, occasionally swiping his thumb over Shane’s arm, one thought kept scrolling through his brain.

_Yup, I’m a little bit gay._

While there was absolutely nothing sexual about giving Shane some much needed comfort while he slept, it was pretty fucking intimate all the same. Ryan never wanted it to end. He’d slept next to Shane plenty of times, but never this close, and never touching like this. Ryan was already drunk on it, wondering where else on Shane’s body the skin was this soft, and where it wasn’t, and what that would feel like under his fingers.

This was no longer a crush Ryan could push down or ignore. This was...this was something else, something deeper yet less-defined. Whatever it was, it scared the living crap out of him, but not in the way he expected. It wasn’t that Shane was a guy, it was that he was _Shane_. Ryan’s best friend, his co-host, his fellow Ghoul Boy, his big guy. Could their relationship really handle another label? Especially one like “boyfriend”?

Not that it would ever happen. Shane was into guys, but that didn’t mean he was into _Ryan_. Being compatible as friends and coworkers didn’t meant they’d be compatible as anything more than that. Hell, Shane didn’t even like sports, so Ryan very much doubted that he’d be into a guy that owned over a dozen basketball jerseys.

But as Ryan watched Shane snore softly, he told himself he wasn’t going to count or not count his possibly-gay-for-each-other chickens before they hatched. Shane was in a vulnerable spot right now, and it wasn’t the best idea to judge anything going on between them through that lens.

Maybe in a few weeks Ryan could test the waters, but for now, he was content to lie here next to Shane and help him get some much needed rest.


	5. Chapter 5

Shane slept off and on through Friday night and Saturday morning. The first time he woke up Ryan was gone, but Shane could still hear him, pouring kibble for Obi in the kitchen. He stayed awake for a little bit, mostly answering texts from friends and family members, before his head got all swimmy again and he nodded back off.

The second time, Ryan was back, curled up on his side facing Shane. He was asleep, his mouth slightly agape with a tiny bit of drool pooling on the pillow. His wrist was resting against the inside of Shane’s arm, his fingers loosely bunched up on the mattress. Shane’s heart clenched, realizing that Ryan had willingly slipped back into his bed to help him sleep. Shane really wasn’t sure how many of his friends would do that for him.

The third time he woke up, it was morning, and Ryan was still next him, facing the other way now. The way his t-shirt stretched around his back muscles was mesmerizing. How was Ryan not constantly being suffocated by his own clothing?

_*doo-dee-doo* *doo-dee-doo*_

With a muffled grumble, Ryan reached for his phone on the floor next to the bed, swiping the alarm to snooze before twisting his neck around to glance at Shane.

“Fuck, sorry. I forgot to turn it off.”

“It’s okay, I actually just woke up before it went off.”

“Oh, cool,” Ryan smiled, flopping over to look at him properly. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah, I did. Thanks, I know that was probably asking a lot,” Shane said, bracing himself for whatever dumb joke Ryan had come up with to wave all of this off.

“I’m pretty sure sleeping next to someone is about as low-maintenance as it gets. Oh no, what a hardship!” he joked.

Well, that was unexpected. “Are you sure? I know how much you’ve been doing,” Shane paused, not wanting to say “for me”. “Around here, plus all your own shit. And work.”

Wrinkles formed on Ryan’s forehead. “Yeah? Why is it so hard for you to believe that I want to help you, in whatever way I can?”

He frowned, upset by Ryan cutting right through his bullshit and how he happened to be correct. “I dunno. I think I’m just bad at asking for help, I guess.”

“Duh, I could have told you that.”

Shane’s lips twitched. “Is it that obvious?”

Ryan rolled his eyes before he rolled his body out of bed. “And everyone acts like _I’m_ the dumb one.”

Shane went to follow, needing to stretch his back from being in bed the past day. When he swung his injured leg over the side, his incision burned with renewed pain so bright he had to swing it back up. Ryan was on him in an instant.

“What can I do?”

“Nothing, I just gotta give it a minute,” he hissed, automatically reaching down to clutch where the pain was radiating from, even though it was protected by a hard cast.

Ryan was not so easily deterred. He bent over to rummage through Shane’s parental care package, snagging the box of Sharpies.

“Hey, I can do _something_ ,” he said, waving them around. “I can sign your cast, distract you for a few seconds.”

“We’re not twelve, Ryan. You don’t have to sign my cast just like you don’t have to sign my yearbook.”

“Tough shit,” Ryan grinned, pulling the gold metallic Sharpie out. Shane’s mom must have known he’d pick a black cast, that crafty woman. “It’s gonna say ‘math was lame, hope your summer’s cool, TTYL’.”

“Be sure to put your phone number, too, so I can promise to call but never actually do it.”

He sat at the edge of the bed, very gingerly pulling Shane’s leg into his lap. “Got it. I’ll use the wrong ‘your’, too, really give it that 2002-Ryan Bergara authenticity.”

Shane chuckled, imagining what an awful little shit middle school Ryan must have been.

It was a weird sensation, feeling Ryan write on his cast. Shane could vaguely feel it, the drag of the marker over the textured cast material. To no one’s surprise, Ryan chose the very top of his cast, right where everyone and anyone could see.

“There. Be thankful I didn’t put my old basketball number on there, I was really tempted to.”

Shane lifted his leg to inspect it, surprised to not find a silly yearbook quote or even just Ryan’s name.

_Ghoul boys, ride or die._

_Ryan_

“That’s supposed to be a ghost,” Ryan said, pointing to the little misshapen cartoon blob next to his name. “Kind of looks like Pac-Man, though.”

“No, I got it,” Shane smiled up at him, his heart, no, his _soul_ full from this goofy, good-hearted guy. “Thanks. I love it.”

Ryan smiled back. For a fleeting second, Shane was overwhelmed with the desire to grab the front of his too-tight t-shirt, pull him in close, bury his face in Ryan’s neck, and try to explain just how grateful he really was into it. But then Ryan was halfway out the door, making noise about brewing coffee, and the moment was gone.

Eventually Shane was able to stand with only a slight hiss of pain, and he scooted out into the living room for a change of scenery. He spent most of the weekend out there, watching TV with Ryan or reading the Capone book his dad had sent (there was a note on the inside cover: “Thought you could use this for your history show!”) in between naps. He couldn’t believe how exhausted he was, even with a decent night’s rest. Who knew that a little surgery on a broken ankle could leave you so tired for so long?

But still, he was sleeping through the night better with Ryan laying next to him, his hand always loosely curled around Shane’s elbow. Shane couldn’t get over how totally fine Ryan was with such an intimate sleeping arrangement. Maybe he had been too hard on Ryan in the past, or maybe Ryan really did just want to help Shane however he could. Regardless, it filled Shane with warmth from the tips of his hair down to his toes, even the ones he could barely wiggle right now.

When Monday came, he tried to get up and go to work to film the Post-Mortem, but he was too sore, too sleepy, too spent to do it.

“This sucks, I had the Hot Daga planned out for every single episode. Now I’m going to have to combine some plot points,” he grumbled to Ryan, who was nursing a travel mug of coffee.

“Oh no, less Hot Daga, what a tragedy,” Ryan joked.

“Shut up. You know how hard I work on that.”

Ryan sighed. “Unfortunately, I do. Look, maybe one week you can do a supersized one, just to make up for lost time.”

Shane raised an eyebrow. “You would allow that?”

“Maybe. Ask me again when I’m more awake.”

“You know that now I am going to bug you about this until you get so tired of me that you give in, right?”

He grimaced. “I am realizing that now, yes.”

Ryan left shortly after that, promising to get a good a replacement Shane for the Q&A and to wait for him to tell all the gory details about his injury. Meanwhile, actual Shane was excited to be able to make microwave popcorn for himself. They’d tied one of those reusable grocery bags around the front of his walker for him to be able to carry things around again.

After a mid-afternoon nap with Obi curled up on his stomach, Shane woke up to a picture text of Ryan and Kelsey (Sims Kelsey) on the Q&A set. They were both all smiles, raising their coffee cups up in a salute.

Shane knew that this text was supposed to make him feel better, but he felt like shit anyway. He hated being cooped up in this apartment alone, unable to focus on anything except baking shows and half-finished crossword puzzles. That was supposed to be _him_ sitting next to Ryan, sipping tea out of a branded coffee mug, answering questions before unleashing the newest chapter of his beloved Hot Daga. This wasn’t fucking fair.

After that, a dark cloud settled itself in the back of Shane’s mind, growing steadier throughout the week as he stewed in his apartment while Ryan was off making _their_ show without him. It was doubly frustrating because Shane knew it was completely irrational. Somehow that just made his bad mood even worse.

Even Obi was keeping his distance, sleeping near Shane but not right on top of him like usual. Of fucking course this was screwed up, too. All because Shane’s stupid fucking foot missed one fucking stair.

He tried to hide his dourness from Ryan, who would inevitably try to fix it even though there was nothing to be fixed. By Thursday morning it finally came out.

Ryan was sitting on the edge of Shane’s bed, lacing up his sneakers when he asked. “Hey, so, what time do you want to leave for the movie tonight? I can leave work early if you want to have some extra time.”

“Don’t bother. No point in going,” Shane mumbled.

“What?! Dude!” Ryan’s head shot up so fast he might have given himself whiplash. “You haven’t shut up about this movie for over a year, but now you don’t want to go? Your doctor said you could, remember?”

“Yeah, but the tickets I have are for the theater across town. The one with stadium seats. You know, seats that require going up stairs. Stairs that I can’t fucking do.”

Ryan already had his phone in his hand. “I’m sure we can find one without them-,”

“Already tried. Everything is sold out,” Shane interrupted, flipping his own phone over and over in his hands. "I read all the fine print about exchanging or returning tickets, and long story short: I can’t. Because why the fuck would I be allowed to?”

“Shane,” Ryan said calmly, which just irritated him even more. “I’m sure if we ask some people in the front to trade with us, they will. You’ve got a pretty big sympathy card to play.”

“Yeah, not likely. Not with my dumb fucking luck,” Shane said miserably.

Ryan placed his hand on Shane’s knee, right above where his cast started. “Come on, man. I bet you got the best seats in the house, right? People will be scrambling to trade with us. I promise.”

He ignored how nice Ryan’s hand felt. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Which means we’re going, right?”

“Maybe.”

Ryan gave his knee a squeeze. “We’ll make it work, okay? If for no other reason than to make sure you can shave that fucking mustache off tonight.”

Against his better judgement, Shane grinned. “You really hate it that much, huh?”

He shuddered exaggeratedly. “I really do.”

After Ryan left for work, Shane let himself look up Mission Impossible: Fallout on RottenTomatoes. He’d been avoiding it all week, not wanting the reminder of how great this movie was supposed to be when he wasn’t going to be able to see it opening night.

_Tomatometer Score: 97%_

And for the first time in days, the dark cloud shrunk instead of grew. Maybe a short guy in crazy good shape was what he needed to get out of this funk and get back to regular life.   


The fact that he couldn’t decide if that guy was Tom Cruise or Ryan Bergara was beside the point.

* * *

 The theater was absolutely packed. Ryan could feel Shane tense up the moment he saw the throngs of people crowding the doorways. Shane hadn’t really been out in public with his walker yet, and navigating around so many people was awkward at best.

“Fuckin’ people,” Shane grumbled after someone bumped into him without apologizing. “That could knock me down, you know.”

“I know,” Ryan said, glaring down the punk kid who had just knocked into Shane’s shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get the seats sorted and then I’ll get the popcorn.”

“I still don’t know if this is going to work.”

“Trust me, big guy. I’ve got you.”

Slowly they made their way to the theater, Shane swearing under his breath every few steps from the obvious strain while Ryan perfected his evil eye for anyone that might dare run into them. There was no way he was going to let anyone or anything ruin this night for Shane, especially after the shitty mood he’d been in all week. Ryan got it, he’d probably be even crabbier if he was the one that was laid up at home, but he still wanted tonight to go well. If anyone deserved to see this damn movie, it was the guy who had been telling him all the extremely boring production details about it for the past fourteen months.

Once inside the appropriate theater, Shane edged the wall, obviously trying to stay out of everyone’s way. Considering he was a six-foot-four dude with a walker, that was easier said than done. _Okay, Ryan, time to make this happen._

The front row was only half full, but there were a couple of guys in the seats right on the aisle. Ryan made a beeline for them.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt, would you guys be interested in trading seats with me and my friend?” he asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder towards Shane.

The guy right on the aisle seat shrugged. “Where are they?”

“G9 and 10. Middle, perfect view of the screen.”

“I dunno. I’m pretty big on having aisle seats, in case I need to take a piss, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it,” Ryan said, barely keeping his eyes from rolling back in his head. “But my buddy can’t get up the stairs, he broke his ankle a couple weeks ago.”

The other guy spoke up. “Then why’d he get tix for a seat he couldn’t get to?”

Ryan involuntarily rolled his neck in annoyance. “Because he bought them before he broke it. That’s how long he’s been dying to see this movie.”

“Yeah, I don’t know, man. I think we’re good here.”

Any other night, Ryan would have given up. Waited on some other less assholish patrons to ask for their seats. But these were the perfect ones, Shane could set his walker to the side without it being in the way, and they’d be able to have a straight shot out if he had to go the bathroom or anything.

Clearing his throat, Ryan crossed his arms, flexing them a little bit. Okay, maybe a lot. “No man, we’re not good. You’re really not going to trade seats with a guy who broke his ankle?”

The two guys shared a look. “Alright, little man,” (Ryan literally grinded his teeth.) “If these seats are so important to you, what are they worth to ya?”

Despite his workout regime Ryan was not a fighter, but goddamn did he want to punch these knuckleheads right in their noses. But that wouldn’t get him these seats, and it would certainly not make Shane’s night any better.

He pulled out his wallet, making sure they couldn’t see how much was in it. “Twenty.”

“A piece,” one of the guys said.

“Are you fucking shitting me? Forty dollars just to change seats?”

“Price just went up to fifty,” the other guy smirked. “Or you could wait for someone else, but they wouldn’t have these nice aisle seats, would they?”

God _fucking_ dammit. Being a true crime aficionado, Ryan thought he knew how shitty people could be, but they still managed to surprise him sometimes.

“Fine,” he growled, his jaw set on edge. “But not until your asses are out of the seats.”

The guys nodded at each other, standing up to edge out into the aisle. Ryan quickly shoved two twenties and two fives into their greasy palms, making sure to glare at them the entire time.

Once they were gone, he waved Shane over.

“Perfect, huh? No stairs, no way for the walker to be in the way, good view of the screen.”

“Yup,” Shane said, falling into the seat with a slight wince of discomfort. “Good timing, too, I was about to lose my balance over there.”

Suddenly, Ryan’s wallet being lighter didn’t feel like such a big deal. “Cool, I’ll go get us some popcorn and drinks.”

A few minutes later he returned with two steaming buckets of high-grade movie popcorn and a couple of bottled waters shoved into his shorts pockets. After handing them off to Shane, Ryan settled into the seat next to him.

“See? I told you we’d be able to trade.”

“Yeah,” Shane admitted after swallowing his huge handful of popcorn. “Is it really a trade when you have to buy them, though?”

Ryan coughed, almost swallowing a kernel whole. “What are you talking about?”

“Ryan,” Shane sighed in that way he always did when Ryan was full of shit. “I saw you pull out your wallet.”

“Oh. It wasn’t much, don’t worry about,” he shrugged it off.

“Ryan.”

“It wasn’t! I swear. Those guys were just a couple of assholes.”

Shane obviously didn’t buy it, but he let it drop as they waited for the movie to start. When the lights darkened all the way, Ryan found himself watching Shane almost as much as the movie, hoping it was going to live up to his incredibly high expectations. For the first few minutes, he wasn’t sure, especially when Ethan Hunt let some incredibly valuable nuclear orbs fall into the hands of terrorists and said terrorists blew up three different cities. But then the IMF team revealed their gambit, rubber mask of Wolf Blitzer and all, and the overjoyed grin on Shane’s face was worth way more than fifty bucks.

Two and half action-packed hours later the end credits rolled. Shane _actually applauded_. Holy shit, what a nerd.

(A nerd Ryan had the hots for, but still. Nerd.)

“So, I take it you liked it?”

“I want to build a shrine to Christopher McQuarrie and live in that shrine and smite anyone who dares besmirch him,” Shane said very seriously. “That. Was. Incredible.”

“It was. That motorcycle chase was next-level,” Ryan agreed.

“Right? And then the foot chase! On the rooftops! That’s when Tommy C. broke his ankle. But look, he got back out there and finished the movie!”

“Yeah! I’m sure you’ll be back out there jumping out of airplanes with him in no time,” he grinned.

“Please don’t put an impossible dream like that into my head, Ryan. Now I’ll never be happy until I make it a reality.”

“Buzzfeed has connections, maybe we can make it happen,” he said as he was about to stand, but Shane stopped him, hand clasping over Ryan’s wrist.

“Hey. Thanks. For this,” he said, the crinkles around his eyes deepening.

“It was nothing, seriously.”

The hold on Ryan’s wrist tightened, the fingers edging onto his palm. “No, it wasn’t. Not to me.”

With a gulp that he hoped wasn’t noticeable, Ryan flicked his thumb up to press it on top of Shane’s, effectively linking them together. “You’re very welcome, then.”

They sat there like that as the credits rolled and people ambled out of the theater. Christ on a crutch, Ryan wanted to kiss him. He wanted to lean in, at first just press his lips to Shane’s before reaching out with his other hand to feel what his facial hair felt like. He wanted to bump his nose against Shane’s and softly giggle at their lack of coordination. He wanted to never let go of Shane’s thumb, unless it meant holding his entire hand. He wanted to take Shane home, shove his sweatpants down and taste him, every single inch of him.

But as much as he wanted those things, Ryan held it in, held it as tightly as Shane was holding his wrist. There was no way Shane’s soft eyes and strong grip were anything other than friendly gratitude from getting to see his new favorite movie on opening night.

Ryan let himself have those wants, though. And that was almost enough.

Almost.

* * *

 Shane was so buzzed from how perfectly amazing and incredible and fantastic and kickass Fallout was that, for the first time in days, he truly didn’t feel tired. At least, not in his mind. His body was full of aches and pains from the unfamiliar theater seats, but he didn’t care. That movie fucking ruled and Shane felt like a whole new man. Or, at least, the man he was before he’d cracked his fibula.

Back at his apartment, Ryan filmed him shaving his Henry Cavill tribute-‘stache off, both of them giggling like idiots, still high on the movie.

“It’ll be nice to have a ‘Gram story not be about my sad broken ankle life,” he said as his uploaded the video.

“Aw, don’t shit on all that prime Obi content. I’m pretty sure he’s more popular than either of us,” Ryan pointed out as he toed his shoes off in Shane’s bedroom.

“You’re not wrong there.”

Ryan slid under the blankets, taking his familiar spot nestled up to Shane, his hand curled around his arm. “You sure you’re ready to go back to work tomorrow?”

Shane had brought it up in the car, feeling confident after successfully navigating a night out. “Yeah, at least for the Post-Mortem. I’ve got a ton of Hot Daga plot to bust through.”

“Great,” Ryan said sarcastically.

“You missed it on Monday with Kelsey, don’t lie to me.”

“Sure didn’t.”

“Whatever, I know you, Ryan Bergara.”

Ryan flicked his eyes open at that, like he was skeptical. “Whatever you say.”

For the first time since they’d started doing this, Ryan fell asleep first, as Shane was still too jazzed on his boy Tommy Cruise fucking killing it. Not to mention Henry Cavill. Holy shit that was a slice of beef parading around as a man.

But eventually he did begin to snooze, although it wasn’t a deep sleep. Shane knew it wasn’t because at 1:51am he was awoken, not by the usual ankle pain but instead by Ryan.

“Want you,” Ryan mumbled out of nowhere. Shane blinked awake, wondering what the fuck he was talking about.

“What?”

But Ryan didn’t respond because he was fast asleep. Shane bit down a smile. He loved catching people talking in their sleep, it was always good for a few laughs.

“Fuckin’ want you so bad,” Ryan repeated, half-muffled by his pillow. Oh hell, was Ryan dreaming about a sexy girl? Or, possibly, a gigantic hamburger? Both were equally possible. As he was considering filming this for friendly blackmail purposes, Ryan said something that stopped Shane in his tracks.

“Want your dick.”

Shane gulped, unsure if he heard correctly. No, right?

“Yeah, dude. Want that big D.”

Okay, _that_ time, Shane knew what he heard. He knew what _he_ thought “big D” meant, but this was Ryan. Maybe it was a sports thing.

Suddenly Ryan flopped onto his stomach from his side, and started gracelessly grinding his hips into the mattress.

Oh fuck.

Sports-related or not, Ryan was definitely having a sex dream. About a guy. Less than a foot away from Shane.

Oh _fuck_.

Shane glanced at his walker, wondering if he could hobble out of here without waking Ryan up and making an awkward situation even more awkward, but he knew there was no way. It would be way too much noise. Maybe if Shane just stayed still, he could will himself back to sleep while dream!Ryan worked out whatever he needed to work out.

It almost worked. For a couple minutes, Ryan was quiet, sans the occasional dip of the mattress.

Then the groaning began.

Shane’s eyes flew open in awestruck horror, watching as the most obscene, shameless noises fell from Ryan’s mouth. His workout grunts were downright tame compared to these, and now, Shane had an ever-bigger problem on his hands.

 _Don’t you fucking dare_ , Shane swore to his own dick.

Not having the ability to communicate telepathically, Shane’s dick twitched in his sweatpants like the goddamn traitor it was.

No no no _no_. Stay soft, for the love of all things good and pure in this world, stay soft.

“Fuck me,” Ryan moaned into his pillow, his hips rutting against the bed, and oh no, no no no, Shane’s dick liked that. It liked that _a lot_.

Shane’s eyes flickered down to see a tent forming on his sweatpants.. He could still get out of this. Squeezing his eyes shut, Shane thought of the least sexy things he could: monster trucks, spreadsheets, cold showers. Yeah, cold showers, all that freezing water trickling down his skin, super unsexy...

“Wanna feel you, all of you.”

Shane bit down so hard on his bottom lip that it stung, but that pain was nothing to what was happening in his underwear right now, his dick hardening with every filthy word Ryan mumbled. Shane’s fingers found themselves lingering by his waistband, desperate to touch himself, but he had just enough self-control not to. He was pretty damn sure jerking off next to your sleeping friend broke every friendship rule in the book, even if said friend was having the most intense wet dream of all time.

“Fuck yeah, your dick feels great.”

A very small but very real groan escaped from Shane’s lips before he could stop it. Immediately, he froze, like there was a T. Rex in his bedroom, but Ryan didn’t stop grinding against the bed.

While it was a relief that Shane hadn’t woken him up, the tent in his pants was now standing at full attention. He knew his dick well enough that it wasn’t going away, not without getting off first. He had to get out of this bed to take care of it, now.

Moving in slow motion, Shane very quietly sat up, keeping an eye on Ryan (just to make sure he was still asleep, no other reason). So far, so good. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bed, clenching his fists around the baggy material of his sweatpants to keep from hissing at the pain of his ankle and how his underwear dragged against his sensitive dick.

Next, Shane grabbed the handles of his walker and pulled himself up onto his right leg. Now came the hard part: making it to the door--which was shut to keep Obi from giving Ryan an allergy attack, adding another obstacle like it was an American Ninja Warrior course.

Tentatively, he took a step, and while it was much noisier than Shane would have liked, his bedroom carpet muted enough of the walker’s wheels to keep Ryan asleep.

After a few minutes, Shane made it to the door. Holy shit, he had done it, and Ryan was still asleep, his moans softer and his hip movements muted. Now just to quietly open the door, and then he could worry less about the noise on his way to the bathroom. But when Shane opened his bedroom door, a darling but inconvenient surprise awaited him.

“ _Mrow_.”

“Obi!” he hissed. “Move!”

Obi obeyed, but since he was a cat, it was in the exact opposite way Shane wanted. Winding his way around Shane’s walker, he strutted into the bedroom and towards the bed.

This was not happening. Shane was dreaming, right? He had to be.

“Obi! No! Bad cat!” he hissed again, trying to dissuade him from jumping on the bed.

Obi jumped on the bed.

At this point, Shane just had to get the fuck out of here. _Sorry Ryan, sorry Obi, you’re both on your own._

No longer caring about the noise or how uncomfortable it was to take longer steps with his hard-on, Shane scurried as best he could to the bathroom, letting out an audible sigh of relief as the door shut behind him.

After closing the toilet seat lid, he maneuvered to sit down, and finally, _finally_ pulled his pants and boxers down to free his dick from its cloth prison.

Relaxing against the back of the toilet, Shane spit onto his hand and wrapped his fingers around himself with a sigh. As he stroked himself, he tried to fantasize about his greatest sexual hits or other usual jerk-off fantasies, but he couldn’t keep Ryan out of his head. Especially not this Ryan, not the one who was currently having the wet dream of a lifetime in Shane’s own bed.

_“Fuck me.”_

_Yeah, Ryan. I’ll fuck you,_ he thought, imagining Ryan on his hands and knees. _I’ll fuck you until your thighs shake. Yeah,_ _those_ _thighs._

_No, Shane, stop it. This isn’t okay. That’s your very straight best friend, think of something else._

_“Wanna feel you, all of you.”_

_Bet you feel so good, Ry, so tight and hot. Wanna feel you, too, feel those strong fingers inside me._

Shane crossed his free arm over his mouth to muffle his moans, picturing Ryan fingering him, stretching him open.

_SHIT. No no no. Focus on...a girl. Any girl. You like girls, too, pick one._

_“Fuck yeah, your dick feels great.”_

_Bet yours feels fucking amazing, in my hand, in my mouth, in my ass, wouldn’t matter._

His rhythm began to stutter, he was close. Fuck it.

_“Want you.”_

_Want you, too, baby. Want you so fucking bad, I always have._

Biting down on his forearm, Shane came white hot all over his hand and the hem of his t-shirt. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. That was not okay. Getting hard because the guy you were sharing a bed with had a wet dream was one thing, but finishing the job while you fantasized about it was another. And none of it was okay. God _dammit_.

Full of guilt and covered in come, Shane quietly cleaned up, trying not to think about having to slide back _into_ bed with Ryan. Maybe he could just stay in the bathroom all night, or go sleep on the couch. Blame his pain meds or something.

Then unsteady footsteps reverberated into the bathroom from the hallway, stopping right outside the door.

Sure, this fucking might as well happen.

Ryan walked a little further down, towards the living room, before his footsteps stopped again, like he wasn’t sure where to go. Shane grimaced, imagining how messy and uncomfortable he must be. Ugh, might as well get this over with.

After flushing the toilet to keep up appearances, Shane stood and checked himself in the mirror. His face was still pink, but otherwise, he didn’t think it was obvious that he’d just jerked off. At least, he hoped not.

When he opened the door, Ryan had his back to the entry, his legs crossed in an awkward stance.

“All yours,” Shane said, trying to act casual.

“Thanks,” Ryan mumbled, darting inside so quickly that Shane didn’t even see his face, which was probably for the best. He didn’t need to add that image, Ryan’s surely flushed and sweaty face, to his list of things he shouldn’t know about his best friend.

Back in his room, Obi was waiting on the bed like the little shit that he was. Shane fell back into his bed with a sigh, propped his ankle up, and dragged his dumb cat onto his chest.

“What a fuckin’ night,” he mumbled as he scratched his ears.

Obi purred as he flopped over, his head butting up against Shane’s chin. Ah, if only Shane could be a cat, all his problems would be solved. Cats had it so good, and they didn’t even know it.

Ryan didn’t come out of the bathroom for a while, and when he did, Shane heard him hesitate outside the doorway. Quickly, Shane nudged Obi off onto the floor and pretended to be asleep, hoping that if he just acted like everything was normal, Ryan would too.

“Hey Obi,” Ryan whispered, softly shutting the door behind him. Shane heard him cross the room to the far side of the bed and slip back under the covers.

Swallowing, Shane tried to think of literally anything in the world besides Ryan. He tried to recount all the Mission Impossible scenes, from most badass to just slightly less badass. He tried to name all the state capitals, he even tried literally counting sheep, but in the end his mind kept circling back to the most dangerous part of his fantasy.

_Want you so fucking bad, I always have._

Like Forrest Fenn with his treasure, Shane had buried that terrifying truth deep, hidden it so well that he often forgot it was there. But tonight the blaze had been discovered, and with it, all of Shane’s deepest desires bubbled to the surface. He wanted Ryan. He wanted Ryan in every way, no matter where or when. He wanted him in the morning, all mussed up hair and yawns. He wanted him in the afternoon, hyped up on cold brew and obsessing over a final cut. He wanted him in the evening, groaning and falling apart from Shane’s fingers. He wanted him at night, curled around Shane, holding his hand against Shane’s chest, pressing soft kisses at the base of his neck.

He wanted it all, even though he knew he could never have any of it.

Shane clenched his fists together at his side to keep himself from falling apart. There was a reason treasures had to be buried. They were too valuable to be kept at the surface, too easily destroyed by outside forces..

Without warning, the torn ligaments in Shane’s ankle throbbed, and the pressure inside him was too much, and he let out a small cry. He felt Ryan twitch from the other side of the bed. Goddammit, of course he was still awake. Hopefully he’d pretend to still be asleep and let Shane suffer alone.

But it was a fruitless wish, because Ryan never knew how to leave anyone alone, especially Shane. He rolled over, his voice tentative.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Shane’s voice cracked. Of fucking course it did. He took a deep breath before following up. “Just...hurts.”

Familiar fingers wrapped around the inside of his elbow and Shane wasn’t sure if they helped or made it worse. “You need anything?”

 _Yes_ , Shane thought. _I need you to kiss me now or leave me alone forever._

“No,” he lied. “I’ll be fine.”

Ryan’s hand left Shane’s arm, but instead of pulling away Ryan pushed in closer, laying his right arm across Shane’s chest. He was so close Shane could feel his breath on his neck.

“Just focus on me.”

Shane’s mind was screaming for him to push Ryan away, to thank him for the help but insist he was fine. But his heart wouldn’t allow it. This was as close as he was ever going to get, and he couldn’t deny himself his only opportunity for Ryan to hold him this close.

Shane brought his left hand up to grip around Ryan’s forearm, holding on like Ryan might float away at any moment.

“Okay,” he breathed.

Doing as he instructed, Shane focused on Ryan. On how warm he was, on the faint scent of body wash wafting off his fingers, on the way his feet would subtly twitch under the sheets. It wasn't helping him sleep but he didn't care. He had to soak all of this up before burying it back inside his heart.

At some point, Ryan softly asked if he was awake, but Shane pretended he wasn't. He couldn't risk him pulling away, not before Shane was ready to let go. When he didn’t answer, Ryan just tightened his hold on Shane’s chest, and Shane knew he made the right call.

It was only a slim fraction of what he wanted with Ryan, but it would have to be enough.

* * *

  _“You like that, Ry? Does it feel okay?”_

_“Fuck yeah, your dick feels great,” Ryan moaned as Shane fucked into him from atop the Eiffel Tower. No, the Arc d’Triumphant. De Triumph? The arch thing in Paris._

_It was night, with millions of stars glittering across the sky in colors Ryan didn’t have names for. The only name he had for anything right now was Shane. Shane’s dick inside him, Shane’s arms wrapped around his waist, Shane’s lips pressed in between his shoulder blades._

_Now, they were somewhere else, in a fancy but still Eurotrashy nightclub. No one seemed to notice or care that they were fucking on the middle of the floor. Thank fuck because Ryan wasn’t about to stop, not for all the plutonium orbs in the world. He was getting close, so close, just a little more pressure on his dick and-_

Something soft and furry brushed across his face.

Ryan awoke so suddenly that he was completely disoriented, wondering which reality was real for a few seconds.

“ _Merow,”_ Obi purred, swatting Ryan in the face with his tail again.

Ugh, it was never the better one, was it?

Just as Ryan was about to gently nudge his allergy source away, he felt something wet in his underwear. He froze, knowing _exactly_ where it came from. Holy shit, he hadn’t had a wet dream in years, not like this. And, to make matters worse, he’d done it _in Shane’s bed_. Oh no no no, this was so bad.

He immediately glanced over to find Shane’s side of the bed empty, and for a second, he was relieved that he had woken up with sticky underwear alone. Then he realized he was probably alone because he had woken Shane up with his stupid sexy dream, and a new wave of horror washed over him. Oh _no_.

Even though Ryan knew that he couldn’t control what he dreamt about, he felt like such a pervert for it anyway. He was the absolute worst, having a sex dream in his best friend’s bed _about_ said friend. Ugh, so creepy.

He slipped out bed, cringing at how sticky he was. Before he freaked out any more he had to get of these underwear. Thankfully he had brought his duffel bag of clothes into Shane’s room earlier in the week, and he grabbed a fresh pair before he awkwardly walked towards the bathroom. Where the door was closed. Fucking _duh_ , Ryan. Where else would Shane be right now?

Desperate to change clothes and pretend like this hadn’t happened, he almost went into the living room to undress, but then he realized that would be more trouble than it was worth if Shane caught him. So instead he waited, his back to the door so Shane wouldn’t see him holding fresh boxer-briefs and ask why, on the extremely slim chance that Ryan had had his wet dream quietly and without notice.

“All yours,” Shane said casually, hobbling out of the bathroom a few moments later.

“Thanks,” Ryan mumbled, darting inside so quickly he didn’t even see Shane’s face.

It took longer than he wanted to admit but Ryan cleaned himself up without incident, cursing himself for being such a teenager about his feelings for Shane. He threw his sticky underwear away, that’s what a mess they were.

When he was done, his legs automatically carried him towards Shane’s room. He paused, unsure if he should go back in. He had an excuse, Obi was still in there, but it still felt like an admission of guilt. Of course, Ryan was actually guilty of being a dream pervert, but maybe the more he acted like it hadn’t happened, the easier things would be.

Then he felt soft fur brush against his legs and Ryan’s decision was made for him. Well, might as well try to make this work.

Quietly, he crawled back into Shane’s bed, staying as far away from Shane as possible so he wouldn’t smell the soap from his clean-up and ask him about it. He laid there for awhile, wide awake with guilt and shame and embarrassment, trying to come up with a dozen different explanations if and when Shane teased him about tonight. He hoped he could just play it off and say it was about one of the Mission Impossible actresses, but Ryan also knew that he talked in his sleep. So...that might not work at all.

Shane let out a small yelp, a pathetic cry of pain that sounded all of the alarms in Ryan’s cortex, shaking him out of his own bullshit. He rolled over to see if Shane was okay, and he very obviously wasn’t. Even in the dim light of the bedroom, Ryan could see how tightly clenched his fists were and how set his jaw was. Goddammit, Ryan had been so wrapped up in his dream boner problems he had neglected Shane. He was such an asshole.

Ryan scooted up next to him and flung his arm over Shane’s chest to hold him close. He figured the closer they were, the more Shane could focus on Ryan’s breath and his touch to keep him centered and help him sleep. And okay, yeah, Ryan didn’t hate the idea of cuddling him, but this wasn’t about that, really.

Then Shane grabbed Ryan’s wrist, holding it like a lifeline.

A dangerous thought bubbled in Ryan’s mind.

Maybe it wasn’t just him that wanted this. Maybe Shane wanted it too.

No, there was no way. He was just holding onto Ryan to help himself sleep.

Just like he’d held Ryan’s wrist at the movies tonight, when he definitely wasn’t trying to sleep.

Maybe. Just maybe…

“Shane? You awake?”

Shane didn’t answer, already asleep again. Well, that answered that question.


	6. Chapter 6

When Ryan’s alarm went off he was still wrapped loosely around Shane, and his left arm was asleep from being slept on for most of the night. While he didn’t feel super well-rested, he was doing better than Shane.

“Shut. It. Off,” he grumbled, shoving Ryan away.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Ryan yawned, swiping his phone to silence the alarm. “You want coffee or tea before heading into work?”

“Not going,” Shane said, keeping his eyes shut. “Not until after lunch.”

“Oh, right. Well, do you want some breakfast or something?”

“No. I just need to sleep some more.”

“Okay, well just let me know-,”

Shane interrupted, his voice full of raspy venom. “Are you going to let me get back to sleep or not?”

Ryan winced, sliding out of bed. “Sorry.”

Trying to be as discreet as possible, Ryan got ready for work, his shame from last night bubbling back to the surface. Not only had he almost definitely woken Shane up with his stupid sexy dream, but his attempts to help him sleep obviously hadn’t worked at all. Shit, how had it all gone so sideways so quickly? The movie had been such a great time, but, now all of the glow from it was gone, replaced by an inconvenient boner and restless sleep.

When it was time for him to leave, he peeked into Shane’s room. Shane’s eyes were closed, so Ryan sent him a text instead.

_Hey lemme know when to come pick u up this afternoon. Everyone is so stoked to see u again._

As Ryan was locking Shane’s door, his phone binged.

_I’ll just get a lyft but thanks._

He frowned as he typed his response.

_U sure? Its no biggie._

_I’m sure._

Well, that was all the confirmation Ryan needed. Shane definitely knew about Ryan’s wet dream, and now, he was avoiding him. Fucking fantastic job, Ryan’s dick. Gold fucking star for ruining one of the most important relationships in his life, and on a day they had to be in front of a camera together no less.

Maybe a sinkhole would open up under the Buzzfeed offices before 4:30 pm. One could only hope.

* * *

 It was around one o’clock when Ryan noticed about half the office stand up around him, applauding and hollering at varying levels. Shrugging his headphones off, he glanced around to spot Shane slowly tottering towards his desk, flanked by a half dozen well-wishers.

Ryan’s stomach flipped in on itself. Shane hadn’t even texted him that he was coming.

“Old man Madej coming through. You may all shower me with sundry gifts and offerings once I sit down,” he said, hiding a grimace as he pushed his walker towards the desk they shared.

Ryan stood up just in case he needed to help, and also to help show off all the gifts and goodies he and the rest of the office had left for Shane at his workstation. There was an oversized novelty card everyone had signed, some Chipotle and other takeout gift cards, a small pile of snacks and treats, a hot dog plushie, and an ottoman someone had found in a prop closet so Shane could prop his leg up.

“Welcome back,” Ryan said, holding onto Shane’s desk chair so it wouldn’t roll away while he sat down. “You get here okay?”

“Obviously,” Shane muttered, falling into the chair with a slight wince. “Wow, guys, this is awesome.”

He ran his hands over the gifts, asking where they came from. The Worth It guys had left him a bunch of non-American snacks, like mochi flavored Kit Kats and ketchup potato chips, TJ was responsible for most of the popcorn, and the rest of the Unsolved crew pitched in for the gift cards.

Finally, Shane picked up the hot dog to give it a little squeeze. “Okay, well I know who this _isn’t_ from, so who got it? Jen? Devon? Other Devin?”

Ryan’s knuckles gripped the back of Shane’s chair. “I did.”

Shane twisted around to look at him in disbelief. “You hate the Hot Daga.”

“Yeah. But you don’t.”

Everyone around them “awww’d” as Ryan and Shane stared at each other, unsure of what else to say. Ryan understood why Shane was mad at him, but it still stung, seeing him be so shocked that he couldn’t imagine Ryan buying him a dumb little stuffed hot dog.

Shane had a steady stream of well-wishers throughout the next few hours, coworkers and friends bringing him cards, asking him how he was, and signing his cast. Ever the actor, Shane put on a good show for everyone, insisting he was doing great and that he would probably be back to half days at the office next week, but Ryan had been around him too much over the past couple of weeks. He knew Shane was struggling, the way he kept adjusting and readjusting his ankle. Not to mention the circles under his eyes becoming more and more pronounced. But every time Ryan tried to ask him if he needed anything, Shane cut him off, insisting he was fine.

When it was time to go film the Post-Mortem, Shane was slower-going than usual. Being out and about, even just at his desk, had obviously taken a lot out on him. He didn’t say anything about it, so Ryan didn’t either.

While Ryan scrolled through Facebook for possible questions at the set, Shane propped his ankle up on the desk, sighing with relief.

“Oh fuck, that feels so much better. How long ‘til we roll, Teejmonster?”

“Just a couple minutes. Sorry, bud.”

“That’s okay, just give me as long as you can.”

“It hurts that bad?” Ryan asked.

“It’s more just really fucking uncomfortable,” he explained, stretching out as far as the set and his body would allow.

“Why didn’t you say something? I can move my shit near our workspace, give you room to prop it up this high if you need it.”

Shane shrugged. “It didn’t hurt as bad then.”

Ryan was about to call him on his bullshit when TJ said that they were ready to go, and Ryan tucked it away. Shane was allowed to be mad at him all he wanted. It was just a little fucking ridiculous to do so at the expense of his health, in Ryan’s opinion.

“Welcome to the Buzzfeed Unsolved Post-Mortem, where we answer your questions about the latest episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved, which was The Eight-Day Bride. And guess who’s back?” Ryan opened the show, pointing to Shane.

“Me, baby!” Shane grinned, leaning to the side to briefly kick up his left leg. “I’m a week out from getting a shiny plate and some screws in this bad boy, and I am very glad to be here.”

“Yeah, so we alluded to this in last week’s Post-Mortem when Kelsey subbed in, but Shane wanted to tell you guys in his own words what happened.”

“I did. I mean, it’s my ankle, let me be the one who tells you the incredibly uncool story of how I did this.”

Shane cleared his throat, leaning forward on his elbows onto the desk. “So, a couple weeks ago, me and this guy were on location, and we were finishing up the top floor of this particular establishment. As I was taking my first step down the stairs, the AC kicked on and blew right against my back, and-,”

Ryan cut him off. “What? You never said that.”

“I didn’t? Well, anyway, it surprised me just enough-,”

Ryan interrupted again. “No, wait wait wait. You felt a small breeze against your back before you fell? In the same place where I felt weird breezes all night?”

Shane’s eyes widened briefly before narrowing them at Ryan. “Oh no. No, no, no, no. Don’t even fucking say it, Ryan.”

“Dude! You may have gotten touched by a ghost!” Ryan yelled excitedly. “Holy shit, TJ, you gotta send me that footage RIGHT NOW.”

“No! No, he doesn’t!” Shane glowered, pointing a long, threatening finger at the camera. “Because it was not a fucking ghost! It was the air conditioning, that thing was kicking off and on all night at that place. It just startled me enough to make me miss the stair.”

Ryan ignored him, too giddy with the possibility of such huge evidence. “Holy shit, you had been giving that cowboy ghost shit all night, do you think he pushed you? Trying to prove you wrong?”

“No, I don’t, because ghosts. Aren’t. Real. _Ryan_.”

“You don’t know that, though! Oh my God, dude, after all this time, you may have finally done it, gotten yourself hurt by one of them,” he grinned deliriously, his mind going a mile a minute, thinking of the implications here. If a ghost had actually _hurt_ Shane, that blew little ol’ apple tater out of the water on the evidence scale, holy fuck.

Shane slammed his fist down on the table, startling not only Ryan but most of the crew. “NO! No, goddammit, Ryan, no. Shut up, just shut the fuck up for once in your fucking life.”

The set was deathly quiet after that. There was no humor or good-natured ribbing in Shane’s voice, and Ryan didn’t know how to react. They’d gotten in arguments before, but he’d never heard or seen him so angry. Shane usually just didn’t take this shit seriously enough to get that worked up.

“But-,” Ryan started, wanting to Shane to just entertain the possibility.

“No. I said shut the fuck up, Ryan, and I meant it,” he glared, his eyes dark and piercing. “This is a very real thing that happened to me. I fell down some very real stairs and I broke my very real ankle in a very real way. There were no ghosts involved because ghosts are not fucking real. Do you understand that?”

Because Ryan never knew when to let shit go, he didn’t.

“Ghosts are real, though.”

With shaking hands, Shane tore his microphone off and dumped it on the table. “Okay, I’m done.”

“Wait, Shane, what-?”

Shane pushed away from the table to grab his walker, hitting his cast against the table leg with a loud _clunk_. He howled with hysteric acrid laughter.

“Are you-?”

“I’m not, thanks for asking,” Shane answered bitterly without looking Ryan in the eye. He stood and hobbled towards the door, where Devon was standing, her eyes wide with concern.

Ryan stood to follow but Shane held out his arm with his hand up. “Don’t.”

“Shane.”

“I said ‘don’t’.”

And without another word, he and Devon left through the stagedoor, leaving Ryan dumbfounded in front of their set.

“Ryan,” TJ said, doing an absolute killer disappointed dad voice.

“I…,” he glanced at TJ and Mark and then over at the stagedoor.

Holy shit, what had he done?

Without another thought, he sprinted towards the door, but TJ was closer to it and he blocked Ryan from the doorknob.

“Teej, move.”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

Ryan tried to reach around him but TJ stayed firm.

“I have to get out there, I have to talk to him!” he pleaded.

“No. Can’t you take a hint?”

Ryan turned to Mark. “C’mon, back me up here!”

Mark threw his hands up, walking away from both of them. “Nope.”

“TJ, please!”

“Dude, I am saying this as your friend and as someone who makes his living by working with both of you. Give him space. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

Miserably, Ryan realized TJ had a point. He slumped onto a nearby chair.

“Oh my God, I fucked up,” he muttered, burying his face in his hands.

“Little bit,” TJ agreed.

“I thought...I thought it was normal arguing.”

“I did too, at first. But he’s hurt,” he pointed out. “It’s not the same, but I tore my ACL in high school, and it fucks with your head. More than you’d think.”

“Yeah, he was in a pisspoor mood all week, but last night I took him to see Fallout and everything was going so good. And then I,” Ryan stopped himself before admitting the wet dream fiasco.

TJ sighed. “Oh Christ, what else did you do?”

“Nothing!”

“Ryan.”

“It’s...personal,” he mumbled. “And awkward.”

“This is Buzzfeed, I’m pretty sure everyone knows everyone else’s awkward personal business. Spill.”

“Okay but you can’t tell anyone, Teej, promise?”

“Promise.”

Ryan cleared his throat and focused on the floor. “So, I’ve been sleeping in Shane’s bed, with him. He says it helps him sleep, being able to focus on my breathing. And last night, I, um, well, I had this dream.”

TJ stifled a laugh. “Oh no. You didn’t.”

Ryan nodded. “I did. And I’m pretty sure I woke him up but nobody said anything, and then he was having a really hard time with his ankle pain so I sort of, um, cuddled with him. And I thought it was okay, I thought he fell asleep quickly, but this morning, he was super cranky. Now I’ve completely ruined our friendship because I’m a dream pervert.”

“Okay, hold your horses, buddy,” TJ said, holding up his palms for effect. “Your friendship isn’t ruined, Chicken Little, but you two obviously need to talk. But I don’t think your dream was the problem. At least, not the main one.”

“Then what was?”

TJ rubbed his hands over his face, taking time to say whatever he was going to say properly.

“Sleeping in the same bed with Shane is one thing. _Cuddling_ in bed with Shane is another. I would hope that you would be smart enough to realize the difference.”

Ryan eyed him, utterly confused. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not going to spell it out for you, dude. That’s between you two.”

Ryan was about to ask what the fuck he was supposed to do with that bit of non-advice, but then the stagedoor opened. Devon came first, then Shane.

His eyes were tinged with the faintest red and his lips were drawn into a tight line, but he and his walker made their way towards the set. Ryan looked to Devon, who was whispering something in TJ’s ear. They shared a knowing look before she caught Ryan’s eye.

“Go ahead,” she whispered.

Without another thought, Ryan jogged back to the set. When he sat down, he realized he didn’t even know where to start.

“Hey, Shane, I’m-,”

“Let’s just do the show, okay?” he said, not looking at him. “Don’t want to keep everyone waiting.”

“We can wait until Monday morning if you want,” Ryan offered quietly. Shane shook his head.

“We’re here, might as well do it.”

Ryan had no idea how this was going to go, but when Mark and TJ were ready, he redid his intro and let Shane tell his broken ankle story without interrupting. Somehow, Shane was able to put on a good face and come up with his usual witty repartee, while Ryan struggled, getting distracted by how awful he felt. At least when it was time for the Hot Daga, he didn’t have to fake his pained faces. He just let how he currently felt about himself come out.

After filming was done, Ryan and Shane silently made their way to the car. Once inside, Ryan started the engine but didn’t take it out of park.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized softly, still not able to meet Shane’s face. “I thought it was our usual bullshit and I took it too far and I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” Shane said, voice hoarse from either food characters or something else, Ryan wasn’t sure. “I’m sorry, too.”

“For what? I was the asshole in there, I totally get why you blew up at me.”

“Even if I was right, and I was, I was a dick about it. I’m just really on edge, lately.”

“Yeah, I know.”

At that, Shane rubbed his hands over his face. “Yeah? I thought I was hiding it pretty well.”

“I had to talk you _into_ seeing your favorite movie franchise, man,” Ryan told him. “Not hidden very well at all.”

“Oh. Right.”

With a small sigh, Ryan changed gears and backed out of his parking spot. “What do you want for dinner? I can stop somewhere.”

“Wherever is fine.”

After grabbing some food truck tacos, Ryan drove them home. Shane took his food back to his bedroom while Ryan ate out in the living room, still quietly hating himself for making Shane so miserable today.

While Ryan was doing a little cleaning in the kitchen, he got a text.

_From Shane Madej_

_Hey can you come here a sec?_

Were they finally going to talk? About either the dream disaster, the Post-Mortem disaster, or some other Ryan-caused disaster?

Thinking of a hundred different ways to apologize, Ryan walked into Shane’s room. Obi was curled up in a near-perfect circle on Shane’s chest and Ryan could hear him purring from the doorway. Even though he was not a cat person, it was an impossibly cute image.

“Hey. ‘Sup?”

“Can you close the door? I want to make sure he stays in here tonight,” Shane asked, indicating to his cat.

What little bit of Ryan’s stomach that hadn’t already folded in on itself today dropped into his socks. “Oh. Yeah, sure. Need anything else?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

With a hard swallow, Ryan pulled Shane’s bedroom door shut and shoved his hands into his pockets so he could pretend they weren’t trembling. Jesus Christ, Ryan, get it together. So what if Shane wanted to sleep with Obi tonight? That was pretty fucking reasonable and it didn’t mean anything, except that Shane missed his cat. That was extremely understandable, and not a big deal at all.

So why did it hurt this much?

Ryan found himself back at Shane’s couch without a recollection of how he’d gotten there. Without bothering to pull out the mattress, he curled up on it, pressing his temple against the worn cushions.

They had been building towards something. Ryan wasn’t sure what that something was, but he knew, deep in his heart, that something had shifted between them over the past couple of weeks, and it wasn’t one-sided.

And then Ryan’s stupid horny subconscious had to pull out that bottom Jenga block, causing the whole thing to topple over before it had a chance to stabilize.

Grabbing his phone, he set an early alarm to go for a long run and gym session. Working out was about the only thing that calmed his mind down, and he needed it more than usual this weekend.

Ryan’s finger slipped, and instead of checking some baseball scores he opened his photo and video gallery. Shane at the office, Shane shaving his mustache, Shane’s fingers holding movie tickets, Shane napping with Obi, Shane stoned after surgery…

Ryan’s finger slipped again.

_“See, I toldja, he’s my hero.”_

When Ryan Bergara fucked up, he really knew how to fuck up.

* * *

 It was easily the worst night of sleep Shane had since he broke his ankle.

First, Obi eventually woke up and decided to use Shane’s chest as a kneading pillow before being shoved onto the nightstand, where he dumped a half-empty glass of water onto the carpet. (Too ashamed to text Ryan for help, Shane just pressed tissues from his nightstand’s jerk-off drawer onto the wet spot.) Then, Obi started pawing at the door, demanding to be released from this sadness cave. Begrudgingly Shane gave in and let him out, leaving himself totally alone.

After that he decided to watch some more Bake-Off to soothe his troubled mind but, of fucking course, his favorite got sent home. (What was the point of this season if he couldn’t keep watching beautiful Selasi beautifully decorate beautiful cakes?) So instead he just laid in bed, flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, feeling like a complete and utter asshole.

When Shane went big, it was almost always on purpose and usually for the camera. Dancing on a demon’s bridge, yelling for Bigfoot, losing his mind over boysenberries, all of that was done with intention. Mostly to make Ryan laugh, but also for the show, to entertain, to bring a little joy to someone’s life.

But today, he’d gone big in a very different way. One that left him immediately feeling like garbage, and which all the delicious food truck tacos in Los Angeles could not fix.

He told Devon as much in the hallway outside the Post-Mortem set, apologizing for making her and everyone else uncomfortable with his outburst. Bickering with Ryan about the validity of ghosts was the whole fucking point of their show, why did he have to take this one argument so damn seriously?

Sure, Ryan had caught him off-guard, suggesting that the cool burst of air was a ghost and not the air conditioning. Shane should have realized Ryan’s mind would immediately go there. He should have just traded his usual barbs before moving onto the questions, but noooo, Shane had to go and unleash all of his frustration with himself out on Ryan.

Because, yeah, Shane was self-aware enough to know he wasn’t really mad at Ryan for suggesting it was ghosts that broke his ankle.. He was mad at Ryan for having the audacity to be the love of Shane’s life that he could never have.

He slept so poorly that he was only in a light daze when he got a text at 6:30 in the morning:

_From Ryan Bergara_

_Fyi goin 4 a run & workout. Fed obi. Txt if u need somethin _

Shane buried his face in his pillow as best he could. He’d pushed Ryan so far away, he’d pushed him right out the door.

* * *

 When Ryan went running, it was usually for long, steady jogs, with the occasional burst of speed to keep himself from getting bored.

Today he started with a sprint and just kept going.

At least, until he almost ran into a lady walking her dog and nearly fell into the street avoiding them.

“Geez, watch where you’re going!” she admonished, leaving Ryan panting next to a telephone pole.

“S-sorry.”

She and her terrier mix were already gone.Ryan fell against the pole, sliding down until he was sitting on the sidewalk. Muscles and lungs burning, he tried to catch his breath. It was almost nice to have a different ache to focus on, instead of the one in the pit of his stomach.

After five minutes or so, he finally got back up, automatically checking the time on his phone as he did.

He had a missed text.

_From Shane Madej_

_911_

Ignoring the lingering ache of his overexerted muscles, Ryan ran.

* * *

 Well, this had not been one Shane’s better ideas. And it really had been a banner couple weeks for those, so that was saying something.

In an attempt to start the day anew, and to wake himself up, Shane had decided to take a shower. Yeah, Ryan wasn’t there, but his right leg really had gotten so much stronger in the past couple of weeks and Shane was sure he could manage to stand up from his shower chair onto his walker without Ryan’s help.

He should have realized that this was a bad decision when he’d dropped his towel onto the wet shower floor as he was drying off, but he thought it was no big deal. Half of it was still dry, that was enough. And it was, at least for drying his right foot. But his hands kept picking up water and when he attempted to pull himself up by his walker, with his right foot on the bathmat outside the shower, his grip slipped and he fell backwards. His ass missed the chair and instead he fell onto the wet tile floor.

“Ow,” he said out loud to no one. His legs were sticking comically outside of the shower door, his left one still encased in a wet garbage bag, with his walker on top of them. He was flat on his even flatter ass in the shower. His ass ached from hitting the floor, as did his arms from trying to catch himself as he fell, but at least he knew he hadn’t hit his head this time.

After giving himself a few moments of private humiliation, Shane tried to sit up, using his chair as leverage. He was still too slippery, and the chair slipped from under his fingers onto its side.

Oh come on.

He sat it back up. Instead of trying again, he decided to crawl out of the shower onto the bathroom floor. But his arms were too sore, and the slick garbage bag around his cast kept sliding on the tile, and everything was too fucking hard and, without any warning, Shane burst into tears.

It was one of those cumulative cries, the kind that encompassed all of the shit that had been building inside for days and weeks until it finally exploded. It was cathartic and awful all at once, and the absolutely only good thing about it was that as Shane was wiping his eyes, he spotted his phone on the lip of the reusable grocery bag that hung off his walker. Heaving himself up to grab it, he got one text out before collapsing back on the shower floor. He was afraid that any more attempts at standing or moving would result in the entire apartment falling on top of him.

As Shane waited for help, all he could think about was how, in spite of how shitty Shane had been to him, he knew Ryan would be back here as soon as humanly possible.

Shane didn’t deserve him, as a friend or as anything else. Not one bit.

* * *

 Ryan ran faster than he ever had, following the zig zag of city blocks back to Shane’s apartment with single-minded determination, shouting for people to move and not giving one single fuck if he was rude.

Inside the complex, he didn’t bother with the elevator, taking the steps two at a time, his adrenaline overpowering the stinging in his legs and chest. He was so distracted by what Shane’s text could mean, that he left the keys in Shane’s front door handle after he unlocked it.

“SHANE?!” he yelled, voice hoarse.

A weak yell from down the hallway. “Bathroom!”

Without a second thought, Ryan flung open the door to find Shane sprawled out, half in the shower, half not, with his walker on top of him, completely naked. If it wasn’t so worrying it would have been hilarious.

“Did you hit your head?” he asked Shane immediately, stepping inside to pick up the walker and set it in the hallway.

“No,” Shane replied, peeking his head up off the floor.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I swear. Jesus, Ryan, are you okay?” he asked as Ryan stepped over him into the shower.

“I’m fine,” he said in between gasping breaths. “You? Should I call actual 911?”

“No, I’m just a little bruised. And cold,” he said, hugging his arms to chest.

Ryan stepped back out of the shower, realizing it was going to be the best way to do this. “Okay, I’m gonna pick you up. Like we did on the stairs.”

“Ryan-,” he started to protest. Ryan immediately cut him off.

“Shut up, Shane. We’re doing this.”

There wasn’t a lot of room, thanks to the toilet, but Ryan was able to wedge himself in between it, the shower, and Shane.

“Can you sit up?”

Gingerly, Shane sat up, edging himself closer to the lip of the shower. As soon as Ryan hooked one arm under Shane’s knees and the other around his waist, his heart jumped into his throat. Shane’s skin was cold, much colder than he expected.

“Grab onto me. Like before.”

With a shaky nod, Shane looped his arms around Ryan’s shoulders. Fuck, he was so cold and shivering so much. Ryan cursed himself for not running faster.

Taking a deep breath, Ryan lifted Shane up with his knees, holding even tighter onto him this time than he had on the Silver Dollar Hotel’s stairs. The first few steps were a little hairy, navigating around the narrow space of the bathroom, but once they were out, Ryan took more confident steps back into Shane’s room. Shane rested his forehead against Ryan’s temple.

“Almost there, big guy,” he promised, turning them sideways into the room.

Shane responded by digging his pruney fingers into Ryan’s shoulder and not letting up until Ryan carefully laid him down on the bed and started pulling the sheets and blankets over his body.

“Whoa, hey, wait, the garbage bag,” Shane pointed out through chattering teeth.

“Oh yeah, sorry.”

Ryan tore at the garbage bag and plastic wrap around Shane’s cast and flung it off onto the floor before resuming his blanket duty, even going so far as to grab a spare one out of Shane’s hall closet. He smoothed it over Shane’s chest, tucking it under his chin.

“Getting warm yet?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re sure you’ve just got some bumps and bruises? No need to call a doctor or take you to a clinic or anything?

“Yup.”

“Okay, good.” Ryan took a deep breath before shouting so loud he was sure Shane’s neighbors could hear. “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

Shane winced, wriggling under the covers. “Um…”

“Why the fuck did you take a shower, the thing you are WORST at right now, while I wasn't here?! I told you I’d be back! Did you really have somewhere you HAD to be at fucking 7am on a Saturday?!”

All of the worry, all of the anxiety that had been building in Ryan since he’d gotten that “911” text exploded out of him. He was furious that Shane would be so goddamn stupid.

“I-,”

Ryan continued on, letting his mouth go without even thinking about what he was saying. “You could have really hurt yourself! Fallen into the sliding glass door, hit your head, broken your other ankle! You can be mad at me all you fucking want, but Jesus fucking Christ, Shane, just ask someone else to come over here if you can’t stand being around me this much.”

Shane sat up at that, holding the top most blanket around his shoulders, his eyes wide. “What? Ryan, I’m not...why would I be mad at you?”

“Oh, come on, man. Let’s just get this over with, okay? I’m tired of tiptoeing around it,” Ryan sighed. “Just let me have it.”

“I...I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shane said. “Unless you mean the Post-Mortem? You apologized for that already, and honestly, that was more me being overly sensitive than anything.”

Ryan stopped, staring at Shane’s clearly bewildered face.

Shit, Ryan really knew how to overreact. Of course last night was just about Shane wanting to sleep with his cat. It had nothing to do with Ryan at all. He probably didn’t even know about Ryan’s stupid dream.

“Oh. Um. Well, then, do you want coffee? Tea? Hot chocolate? Soup? Another thing to warm you up?”

Shane ignored his question. “Shit, Ryan, I’m so sorry.”

“For what? I just overreacted. Classic Ryan, you know?” he shrugged, turning to leave the bedroom. He was so stupid. So fucking stupid.

“Hey, wait!”

Ryan was at the door, wondering if he could make soup without burning Shane’s kitchen down.

“ _Ryan!_ ”

A soft something hit the back of his head as he was one step out of the bedroom. He pivoted around to see the little plush hot dog he’d bought Shane at his feet.

“Um. Decide on tea or coffee?” he asked sheepishly.

“Neither. Come here, please?” Shane asked, scooting over a couple inches.

Ryan shuffled to Shane's side, sitting on the edge of the bed near his knees, feeling too awkward to get any closer.

“You didn’t overreact, okay? It’s me, not you,” Shane said quietly. “I’m really sorry I made you feel that way, though.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. You’ve done so much for me and here I am, being such an asshole that you think I’m mad at you when you’ve literally done nothing wrong. I’m so sorry.”

Ryan knew that Shane was trying to make him feel better, but now he felt worse. He _had_ done something wrong. And he knew he was going to have to admit it, no matter how humiliating it was.

“I have, though,” he said, studying his hands folded together in his lap. “Done something wrong.”

“What? I told you, the Post-Mortem thing was mostly on me, it’s _fine_ -,”

“No. Something else. From the other night.”

“Well, I really don’t... _oh._ ”

There it was. That little bit of acknowledgement that made Ryan squeeze his eyes shut in anticipation of a tearing-down he deserved.

“Oh, Ryan, you don’t...you don’t think I’d be mad at you for a _dream_ , do you?”

He shrugged, still not opening his eyes. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

“Well, I’m not, okay? Dreams are just dreams, even sexy ones.”

Ryan peeked his eyes open, both relieved and puzzled by what he was hearing. “Yeah? Even though it was about you?

“Wait...it was about me?” Shane asked, voice small and eyes huge.

Oh fucking Christ.

He knew...but he didn’t _know_.

God.

Dammit.

Ryan couldn't speak, so he just nodded.

He heard an intake of breath so sharp that it got him to finally look at Shane's face. The color had returned to it and he was staring at Ryan with such a piercing gaze that it almost unsettled him.

“It was about me,” Shane repeated, but as a statement.

“I'm sorry,” Ryan mumbled. “It just...happened.”

Shane shook his head a little, like Ryan speaking had broken a spell on him. “No, hey, yeah, of course. It was a dream, man, like I said. Shit happens in dreams, even to straight dudes. It's okay.”

“I'm not,” he started before catching himself, shutting his eyes again in embarrassment. Way to add a little accidental coming out to this giant steaming pile of awkwardness. Gold fucking star once again, Ryan.

He heard Shane move as the blankets shuffled around.

“You're not what, Ryan?”

He stayed still, feebly hoping Shane’s vision was based on movement.

A slightly clammy hand curled around his forearm.

“Ryan,” Shane said just above a whisper. “You don't have to say it, but you know it's okay, right?”

“I know,” he said, his voice cracking a tiny bit. “It's just different to say it out loud, you know?”

“I do.” Shane tugged on his arm. “C’mere. Please.”

Ryan scooted alongside the edge of the bed until their hips were touching. With a blanket still shrugged around his shoulders like a cape, Shane pulled Ryan into a tight, if slightly awkward, embrace.

“It’s okay,” Shane said softly. “You’re okay.”

Ryan clung to the blanket hanging off his back, not realizing how badly he’d needed to hear that. He’d been so in his head about this whole sexuality thing, and even though he’d accepted it, it never hurt to hear something like that. Especially from Shane.

“Thanks,” he eventually said, pulling back to meet Shane’s eyes, still close enough to keep his hands clutched in the blanket. “You’re the first person I’ve told.”

Shane moved one hand from around Ryan’s back to slightly cup the side of his face. “I’m honored.”

Automatically, Ryan leaned into his palm. Fuck. They were so close now. It was all so close. All his doubts were melting away. He could feel it.

Shane’s fingers slid into Ryan’s hair on the side of his head while his eyes searched Ryan’s face, looking for something.

“What is it?”

Shane abruptly dropped his hand. “Oh, um. Nothing. Sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Ryan asked, edging in a bit closer, filled with bravado he normally reserved for ghost hunts. “For this?”

Ryan placed his own hand on the side of Shane’s face, fingertips pressing against his soft, damp hair. Shane’s skin had warmed up considerably in the past few minutes.

“Ryan, you don’t-you don’t understand,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

Ryan brought Shane’s face in closer to his, until there was only the smallest amount of space between them. “What don’t I understand?”

“How much I want,” he stopped as the tip of their noises just barely bumped. Ryan gave him a few seconds before pressing forward again.

“Then tell me. Tell me what you want.”

Shane closed the space between them to press his forehead against Ryan’s, allowing their noses to touch again. Even with how close they were, Ryan almost didn’t hear him when he spoke.

“You.”

There it was.

“I fucking knew it wasn’t just me,” Ryan muttered before tipping his head to the side to press his lips to Shane’s.

As soon as their lips touched, all of their hesitation flew out the window. Shane kissed back, parting Ryan’s lips with his tongue, grabbing at the front of Ryan’s t-shirt. Ryan slid his hand fully into Shane’s hair, ignoring the slight chill he got from the wet strands. He was kissing Shane. Mothman himself couldn’t drag him away.

As they kissed, Shane flattened one palm against Ryan’s chest, his thumb rubbing over his nipple, causing Ryan to gasp.

“Sorry, was that too much?” Shane asked, pulling his hand away.

“Shane,” Ryan rolled his eyes. “For someone who is so obsessed with concrete evidence, you sure are bad missing it even when it’s making out with you.”

Shane laughed and Ryan could feel tension roll off of him in a wave. “Maybe I just want to make sure the evidence is comfortable, since it’s the first time the evidence has been...analyzed by a guy.”

“The evidence appreciates that, but as the evidence already admitted to having a sex dream about you, you should assume the evidence is very into being analyzed by a guy. Especially since that guy is you.”

A smile spread so far over Shane’s face that it seemed to spill into the rest of his body.

“C’mere.”

Ryan twisted a few strands of Shane’s hair around his fingers. “I am here.”

“No, like, _here_ ,” he said, sitting up with his back against the headboard and indicating to his lap. “Angle’s better.”

Quickly, Ryan tugged his shoes and socks off before scrambling into bed to straddle Shane’s thighs. “Like this?”

“Exactly like that.”

Tipping his head down, Ryan kissed him again, and damn, he was right: the angle was better. Now, he could cup Shane’s face fully in his hands, while Shane held onto Ryan’s hips, under his shirt but over his shorts. Wait, why was Ryan still wearing clothes? Shane wasn’t wearing clothes. This was bullshit.

Ryan sat back on his heels to pull his t-shirt off. Before he could make another movement to shimmy out of his shorts, Shane stopped him, running his right hand over Ryan’s abs.

“Jesus Christ, Ry,” he muttered. “You’re like a sculpture.”

“This is hardly the first time you’ve seen me shirtless,” he teased, trying to hide the flush in his cheeks.

“I know, I just never got to say it before.”

Ryan’s breath hitched as the full gravity of that hit him. How long had Shane wanted to say that?

“I like your nose,” Ryan told him, wanting to repay the compliment.

“Really?” Shane asked, scrunching it up. “It’s kinda big.”

He bent down to press a kiss to the side of Shane’s nose. “Yeah. It’s hot.”

It was Shane’s turn, curling his fingers around Ryan’s biceps. “Your arms are very good. Extremely great. Fantastically incredible. All the adjectives.”

“Could say the same things about your hands. I think about them a lot.”

Shane gulped as he dug his fingertips into Ryan’s arms. “I...yeah. That makes sense.”

“It does?”

“Your dream...you said some stuff.”

Ryan blushed. He didn’t really remember the details of it anymore, besides Shane fucking him in a nightclub that sort of looked like that one scene from Fallout. He could only imagine what he’d said out loud.

“Yeah? Like what?”

Now Shane was blushing. “You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“Ah,” Shane coughed, his blush beautifully spreading down his neck. “At one point you said, ‘Wanna feel you, all of you’.”

Ryan swallowed, a vague memory of dream!Shane fingering him on that Parisian arc flashing through his mind. He peeled one of Shane’s hands off his arm to hold it in between both of his.

“Dream Ryan and I have similar tastes. Good to know.”

“You-you want that? In real life?” Shane asked, flexing his fingers around Ryan’s.

“Yeah, man. You think I’m just sitting in your lap half-naked for my health?”

They both grinned. Shane pulled on Ryan’s hands so they could share a brief kiss.

“Okay, okay. I get it. But you said a lot of filthy stuff, I’m just trying to figure out if any of it was just dream Ryan’s thing.”

“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, big guy,” Ryan said, moving Shane’s hand to the front of his running shorts so he could feel his half-hard dick. “I want it all.”

Shane shuddered. “Okay, why are you still wearing clothes? This is fucking ridiculous.”

Ryan rolled off of Shane to pull his shorts and underwear off. Shane went to follow him but stopped once he was on his side, glaring at his cast.

“Goddammit. Stupid fucking thing.”

“It’s okay. I’ll come to you,” Ryan told him, easing Shane onto his back again and pulling the covers down. Like Ryan, Shane was already half-hard, and holy shit, Ryan thought it was big before.

“Jesus Christ, you’re a shower _and_ a grower? That’s...how. How is that fair?” he asked in complete disbelief.

Shane grinned, urging Ryan on top of him. “Hey, now, you don’t appear to be so bad in that department yourself.”

Ryan settled his knees on either side of Shane’s hips, still gawking at his dick. “I’m alright, but this is just. There is no reason for this much dick, dude.”

“Having second thoughts?”

Shane played it off as a joke, but Ryan could tell there were some actual nerves behind his question, like he afraid that Ryan was going to take any excuse to bolt.

Ryan reached down to wrap his right hand around Shane’s dick. “Does that answer your question?”

“Ah!” Shane gasped. “Fuck yeah, it does.”

“Good.”

Ryan had never touched someone else’s dick before, and it was...weird. But good weird. He liked the weight of it, how different it felt from his own. Tentatively, he moved his hand up and down Shane’s cock, still marveling at how goddamn big it was.

Shane hissed. “Shit.”

Biting his lip, Ryan paused. “You okay? Am I doing something wrong?”

“No! It’s just a little dry,” Shane clarified as he reached over towards his nightstand. “Here, I’ve got lotion, and lube, somewhere.”

“Wait.” Ryan moved down on the bed a little to bend over, his head right next to Shane’s cock. Christ, it was even bigger this close up. “Can I try, first?”

Shane immediately dropped the lotion, staring at him. “Um, yes, yes you most certainly can.”

“Any advice?”

Long fingers threaded themselves gently into Ryan’s hair. “Just go slow, ignore what you’ve seen in porn, and don’t worry about me, okay? There is no way I won’t love this.”

He nodded, taking a deep breath. There was still a very small part of Ryan’s brain that was worried he wouldn’t like this part; that even though he’d been fantasizing about it, the real thing would freak him out or turn him off.

Then he very carefully licked up one side of Shane’s cock.

Oh.

Huh.

He did it again, on the underside. And then again, this time swiping his tongue over the head. And like some sort of sorcery, Shane’s cock got fully hard right before his eyes.

Holy shit, that was cool.

Emboldened, Ryan wrapped his hand back around Shane’s cock before taking the tip into his mouth. Within a half-second, Ryan felt his own dick grow, and all of his fears were gone. Definitely not turned off.

Above him, Shane moaned. He was careful to not pull on Ryan’s hair, even though Ryan could tell he wanted to. With that bit of encouragement, Ryan swiped his tongue over the head as he got used to the feeling of having his jaw stretched around another dude’s cock. He ended up having to pull off pretty quickly to catch his breath, but Shane didn’t seem to mind.

“S’good, Ry. Real good,” he said, licking his lips, watching Ryan with that piercing gaze of his.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. How ‘bout on your end?”

“I’ve got a really big boner right now, so pretty fucking good,” Ryan said before licking back around Shane’s cock.

Shane laughed, rubbing his fingers against Ryan’s scalp. “Well, don’t get too excited, okay? Want to see it for myself.”

It was Ryan’s turn to moan, picturing Shane’s mouth on his own cock and realizing that was about to become reality. Holy hell, what a morning this was turning out to be.

Ryan got back to licking up and down Shane’s cock, and occasionally sucking on the head, until his jaw got too sore. (He made a mental note to work on that, he definitely wanted to take more of Shane in, in the future.) When he finally tasted precome, he found himself groaning, pulling back to ask Shane a question.

“Does everyone’s taste like that?”

“Uh, everyone’s is a little different,” Shane said, his pupils blown and his bottom lip red from biting down on it so hard. “You like mine?”

“Yeah.” He licked some more off to confirm. “S’good.”

“Holy shit,” Shane groaned. “You are going to kill me.”

With a self-satisfied grin, Ryan continued licking over the head of Shane’s cock while he stroked the rest of him with his right hand. Soon, Shane’s moans started to get less even.

“C’mere. Gettin’ close.”

Keeping his hand around him, Ryan shimmied up Shane’s body to kiss him, a messy, bruising kiss that ended with Shane bucking his hips up into Ryan’s hand. Ryan pulled away, mesmerized by how red Shane’s face was, by the breathy moans he kept making.

“C’mon, big guy. Wanna see this,” he said, giving Shane’s cock a squeeze.

That did it. Arching off the bed as best he could with his cast, Shane came in Ryan’s hand, and a little on his own stomach. Ryan couldn’t find a focal point, his eyes trying to take in the gorgeousness of Shane’s face, the way those big hands fisted themselves in the sheets, the come coating his own fingers. It was so much, in the very best way.

“ _Ryan_ ,” Shane gasped, and the way he said it, the wonder and want pouring off every letter...fuck. He’d never heard anything like that before.

Suddenly, Shane’s hands, those beautiful, slender hands, were holding Ryan’s face to bring him in for a kiss, and Ryan could _feel_ Shane murmuring his name against his lips, just repeating it over and over like a chant.

Running his lips down over Shane’s jaw, Ryan muttered. “I’m here, babe.”

Oh fuck. He didn’t just actually say that, did he?

“Did you just call me ‘babe’?” Shane asked, breath ragged.

God. Dammit.

“Nope, certainly did not,” Ryan denied, pressing his face into Shane’s neck, hoping to distract him with a hickey or two.

“Oh.” He felt Shane swallow as he sucked at the hollow of his neck. “Well, I wouldn’t hate it if you did.”

Ryan paused, mind blurred with arousal at that powerful piece of ammunition. “I’ll...I’ll remember that.”

Shane shifted underneath him, reaching for a box of tissues off his nightstand. “Hey, wipe your hand off. Wanna repay the favor.”

They quickly cleaned up as best they could with just tissues, tossing the dirty ones off the side of the bed, for future Ryan to deal with. Certainly not current Ryan, who was about to get a blowjob from his best friend who was now possibly(?) his boyfriend as well.

“So, how do you wanna do this?” he asked once they were ready.

“I thought we’d start with you putting your dick in my mouth,” Shane said sarcastically.

Ryan rolled his eyes. “I meant with your leg. You can’t, like, kneel very easily, right?”

He frowned. “Oh mother _fucker_. I didn’t even think about that. Shit. Um, here, lemme try.”

With some difficulty, Shane rolled over onto his stomach, sort of into Ryan’s lap. Failing to hide a wince, he looked up at Ryan with a forced grin.

“Yeah, here we go.”

“Nope,” Ryan said, pushing gently on Shane’s shoulders to roll him back over. “Pretty sure watching you in pain is a turn-off for me. Sorry.”

“ _Fuck_!” he shouted through gritted teeth. “Stupid fucking piece of shit ankle.”

Ryan squeezed Shane’s hand. “It’s okay, man. I mentioned how much I like your hands, right? We can do that, I’ll fucking love it, I know it.”

“No,” he declared, sitting up. “We’re doing this. _I’m_ doing this.”

“Okay, but how?”

Shane thought for a moment before scooting towards the end of the bed. “Help me onto the floor.”

“Shane, what the f-,”

“I’ll sit with my back to the bed and then you stand in front of me,” he quickly explained. “Okay?”

Ryan gulped, his dick twitching at the mere thought of it. “Yeah. Okay.”

It took a few minutes to get Shane and his limbs safely onto the bedroom floor, especially since Ryan wouldn’t stop fussing over him.

“Are you sure you’re comfy? You did just fall on your ass in the shower.”

“ _Yes_ , good Lord. Now, get your ass over here,” Shane demanded, beckoning to him from where he was adjusting a pillow under Shane’s ankle.

“Alright, alright.”

Ryan stood in front of Shane, staring down at him. Damn, he could get used to this view.

“Fucking finally,” Shane said before taking Ryan into his mouth.

“Holy shit!” Ryan gasped, grabbing onto Shane’s hair to hold himself steady.

Shane just winked up at him as he wrapped his hands around Ryan’s hips and took Ryan even further down. Ryan groaned, already overwhelmed by how hot and wet and fucking fantastic his mouth felt. At that, Shane pulled back, grinning up at him.

“So, you do sound the same when you’re getting blown as when you do your pull-ups.”

“Shut up, Shane.”

Giving his hips a playful squeeze, Shane did shut up, closing his mouth around Ryan’s dick again. As Shane’s head bobbed up and down on Ryan’s cock, Ryan tried to take mental notes for himself, like the way Shane would press his tongue right where the skin was the most sensitive or how he’d let go of one of Ryan’s hips to cup his balls. Then Shane took him _all_ the way in and Ryan forgot every single thing in the world, including his own name.

Yelling a half-dozen obscenities almost all at once, he tried his damndest not to pull on Shane’s hair, but he couldn’t help it.

“Shit! S-s-sorry!” he gasped, dropping his hands.

Shane grabbed one of Ryan’s hands and placed it back on his head. “S’okay. I can take it.”

“ _Jesus Christ_. You’re gonna end me.”

“What a way to go though, right?” Shane grinned before licking down Ryan’s cock again.

Ryan couldn’t even respond, he was so far gone, so close. He knew the second Shane put his mouth back on the head of his cock, that would be it.

“So close, _fuck_.”

“C’mon,” Shane said, his eyes locked on Ryan’s. “I’ve got you.”

And with that, Shane took Ryan back in, and that was it. Groaning like a mad man, Ryan fell over the edge, coming in the heat of Shane’s mouth. He immediately collapsed to his knees, unable to stay standing, he was so fucking overwhelmed.

“Shit, Ry,” Shane said, voice completely wrecked. “You okay there?”

Ryan curled up haphazardly in Shane’s lap, his limbs on a different plane of existence, his forehead pressed against Shane’s temple.

“Yeah. You’ve just destroyed me for all future blowjobs. Jesus fucking Christ, dude.”

He laughed softly, wrapping his arms around Ryan. “Oh Ryan. You have no idea what’s in store for you.”

Ryan twitched, either from an aftershock or the idea that Shane had an even higher blowjob skill level than he knew. “I want to ask you to elaborate but I’m worried my dick will explode if you do.”

They both laughed, small chuckles at first before devolving into delirious wheezes, clutching each other on the bedroom floor. It didn’t matter that Ryan’s comment was only sort of funny; they both could not stop laughing until tears were pouring down their cheeks.

“Holy shit,” Ryan finally said, wiping at his eyes. “It kind of just hit me. We had sex.”

“I know, I was there.”

“But we didn’t even go on a date first!”

Shane’s leftover giggles stopped suddenly as his fingers twitched where they were curled around Ryan. “...you want to date?”

Ryan raised his eyebrows. “Um, yes? Unless...you don’t want to?”

“I do!” he covered quickly. “I just, you know, your little dream had zero to do with dating stuff, from what I could tell, so I wasn’t sure.”

“Oh my God.” Ryan crawled off of Shane to grab the hot dog plushie off the floor and shove it back in his face. “I bought you a hot dog stuffed animal, you idiot. Of course I want to date you.”

He hugged the hot dog with both hands. “This is how you flirt? Wow, I am suddenly very glad we just went straight to the sex.”

“Oh shut up, Shane.”

“I’m teasing.” He kissed Ryan’s forehead. “It’s cute, even though I’m like 90% sure it’s a dog toy.”

“Look, Amazon had other ones but they were weirdly expensive or terrifying, okay?”

They laughed again, Shane fighting off a wince. Without hesitation, Ryan scooped him up in his arms for the second time that day to get him back into bed.

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that,” Shane said as he threw some covers over himself.

“Do you not like it? I just thought-,”

“Oh yeah,” Shane cut him off with an eye roll. “I just hate how strong you are and that you can pick me, a six-foot-four Sasquatch, up with no trouble at all. It’s the worst, please refrain from ever doing that again.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Ryan smiled as he slipped into bed. “You wanna go back to sleep for awhile? It’s, like, not even 9am.”

“I do. Hey, can you put a pillow between my legs? Wanna try sleeping on my side.”

“Sure.”

Shane carefully rolled on his right side while Ryan stuffed a spare pillow under his cast, so it would still be sort of elevated and not rub against his other leg. “How’s that?”

“Amazing. Oh my god I miss laying like this so much,” he sighed happily. “Get in here with me.”

Ryan very much wanted to but he hesitated, not sure what side to go on.

“Uh, where?”

Shane lifted his head. “What?”

“Which side?”

“Awww, Ryan. Do you not know which spoon you want to be?” Shane teased.

“Gimme a break, I’m new at this! How do you decide?”

“I like either, myself, so you can be the big one if you want.”

Shane patted the spot on the bed behind him, and Ryan eagerly crawled under the sheets and slung his left arm over Shane’s middle.

“I’m down to be the little one, too, sometime,” he said offhandedly as he squeezed in close. “Try it out.”

“Yeah? It’s good. Like I said, I like both, so whatever you end up liking, I’ll be a happy man.”

“Great.” Ryan waited a beat, wondering if Shane got what he meant. “We are talking about butt sex stuff, too, right?”

“ _Ryan_ ,” Shane wheezed, burying his face in his own pillow. “Yes, we are.”

“Just checking! Can’t hurt to have clarification.”

Shane just continued to laugh, grabbing Ryan’s hand with his own and holding it close to his chest. Ryan was giggling too, overcome with the realization that his crush was not only extremely real and well-founded, it was _reciprocated_. Shane wanted him, wanted him in all the same ways Ryan wanted Shane.

As Ryan drifted back off to sleep, he couldn’t remember a time when he was happier. Not watching the Lakers, not at Disneyland, not finding out Unsolved got picked up, not even in his sexy Mission Impossible dream. This time, reality won.

* * *

 When Shane’s mind awoke, he was terrified to open his eyes.

Maybe it had all been a dream.

A beautiful, sexy, wondrous, cruel dream.

Then Ryan snored loudly against the back of his neck and Shane felt his face split into a wide smile.

Very much not a dream.

Trying not to disturb Ryan, Shane shifted onto his back so he could properly look at him. As he did, his cast knocked into Ryan’s legs.

“Mmph,” Ryan mumbled, rubbing his nose against the pillow.

“Sorry,” Shane whispered.

Ryan rubbed his shin up and down Shane’s cast. “S’okay.”

“What on earth are you doing?”

His eyes were still closed as he continued to mumble into the pillow. “Playin’ footsie.”

“You’re so weird, you know that, right? You get away with it ‘cause you’re cute, but you are so weird,” Shane told him as he lazily ran his fingers up Ryan’s arm, still draped across his chest.

“You’re weirdcute,” he said, mashing up the accusations into one jumbled word.

Shane laughed. “Did you get into the weed brownies the Try Guys sent over while I was asleep or something?”

Ryan’s fingers tightened around Shane’s side, trying to pull him in closer even though they were already scrunched up against each other. “No. Just happy.”

Shane wanted to make fun of him for that but he couldn’t, it would be too hypocritical. He couldn’t remember the last time his heart felt so full, to the point where he wondered if it ever had.

Treasure was buried for many reasons. For protection and safekeeping, for self-interest, for eccentric old men to entice others into their own obsession. And more often than not, it stayed buried, digging itself deeper and deeper into the earth until it was lost forever.

But some treasures were just waiting to be discovered, to be dug out of the muck by the right person. A person with a smile that could light up a sunny day, a person who believed in the unbelievable, a person with his own buried treasure just waiting to be found.

Not caring about his cast pressing uncomfortably against his right leg, Shane turned over again, onto his left side, so he could hug Ryan as close as possible.

“Me too.”


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EXTREME CHEESE AHEAD.

_From Ryan Bergara_

_I know ur in pt but some bf people are goin 2 a karaoke night & want us to join. U up 4 it? _

Shane leaned against the door of his car, setting his cane to the side to type a response.

S: _I’m down. They took it easy on me today for a change._

R: _sweet! Cant wait for u to put everyone to sleep by singing the national ;)_

S: _nah I got a song in mind already. I think you’ll like it._

R: _oh no wait plz dont do something like baby got back or other 90s novelty rap. Plz?_

Shane set his phone on its holder inside his car, grinning as more texts came in.

R: _oh no ur doing baby got back arent u_

R: _im never blowing u again_

R: _ok thats a lie but cmon tell me what song_

S: _it’s a surprise. And it’s not Baby Got Back_.

R: _ugh fine. But it better be good!!_

S: _it will be_ . _Promise._

Truth be told, Shane didn’t have a karaoke idea. He was not, exactly, a karaoke kind of guy, but his physical therapy office was far enough away from the bar in question that he knew he could come up with something on the way there. He mostly just relished any opportunity to go out and do _things_ now that he was in a walking cast and didn’t have to worry if every bar or restaurant had stairs or narrow walkways. His cabin fever had gotten so extreme that he had even gone to a Dodgers game last weekend with Ryan just to get out of his apartment.

When he arrived at the karaoke bar, Ryan was outside waiting for him. His face lit up as Shane approached.

“Hey! So, you gonna tell me your song yet?”

“Nope,” Shane said, leaning into the one-armed hug Ryan gave him. They’d only told their parents they were together, so the PDA was minimal. They had been waiting for the right moment to tell everyone else, but it hadn’t come yet.

For the first hour or so, Shane and Ryan left the singing to their friends as they cheered them on and drank overpriced cocktails. Finally, while looking through the songbook, Shane found the perfect song.

“Hey, I’m gonna go next. Can you help me put a chair on stage, in case I need it?” he asked Ryan. While he could stand and walk in the padded walking cast, he still got tired easily since his muscles weren’t back at their full strength.

Ryan obliged, setting a chair in the middle of the small stage for him. As Shane limped after him, he paused by the table where TJ and Devon were sitting.

“Film this for me, okay?”

They exchanged knowing glances before TJ gave Shane a thumbs up. Shane didn’t have time to wonder what that was about, though, as his song was ready.

With only a small twinge of pain, Shane stepped up onto the stage and picked up the microphone.

“Alright, hey everyone. This song goes out to my best ghoulfriend, Ryan Steven Bergara,” he winked as he pointed his cane straight at Ryan’s happy, confused face.

A brief piano intro played. Most of the crowd knew what the song was instantly, but Shane wasn’t paying attention to anyone else.

“Ooooh you make me live,” he sang, belting out the first line to Queen’s famous “You’re My Best Friend”. Ryan’s cheeks flushed as he realized what song it was, but his smile was huge and that’s all Shane cared about.

“Whatever this world can give to me, it's you, you're all I see. Ooooh you make me live now honey, ooh you make me live.”

Shane twirled his cane a little, keeping his eyes locked on Ryan’s.

“Oooh you're the best friend that I ever had. I've been with you such a long time, you're my sunshine and I want you to know, that my feelings are true.”

He paused, pointing the cane straight at Ryan’s face.

“I really love you.”

Shane missed the next line because his heart was beating so loudly in his ears. Ryan was pushing his way to the stage with a look of determination normally reserved for planning Disneyland excursions.

“Shit, um,” he stammered, trying to find his place again. “Wandering round, but I still come back to you.”

Ryan was on stage with him now, and Shane lost his lyrics again. What was he doing up here?

“You might wanna sit down.”

“What?”

He pushed lightly on Shane’s chest towards the chair. While Freddie Mercury continued to sing, Shane sat, trying to figure out what the hell-

Ryan kissed him.

Full on the mouth, face in his hands, kissed him. In front of all their friends and a bunch of strangers.

Shane heard a mixture of gasps and yells and awww’s, but there was only one voice that mattered.

“I really love you, too,” Ryan said as they broke the kiss.

“C’mere,” he said, urging Ryan to sing into the microphone. “Help me finish it.”

Together, and off-key, they sang into the microphone, “You're the first one when things turn out bad. You know I'll never be lonely, you're my only one. And I love the things, I really love the things that you do.”

Ryan leaned down to press their foreheads together.

“You’re my best friend.”

The song wasn’t quite over, but they were kissing again, so Queen finished it without them. When it ended, their crowd of friends whooped and hollered like a rowdy 90s sitcom audience while Shane reached up to cup one side of Ryan’s face.

“Helluva way to tell everyone.”

He shrugged. “Timing finally seemed right. Besides, I’m tired of keeping it secret.”

Shane looked out into the crowd, almost all of whom had their phones out.

“Good, ‘cause I’m pretty sure the whole world is going to know in about twenty minutes.”

Ryan glanced at the crowd as well before turning back to Shane. “I think it’s more like ten.”

Arms wrapped around each other, Shane and Ryan finally got off the stage, passing a hilariously infuriated Freddie on the way.

“How the hell am I supposed to follow that?! You jerks.”

“We love you, too, Freddie,” Shane grinned.

“Yeah, yeah,” she rolled her eyes, giving them each hugs.

Freddie wasn’t the only one displeased with their big show of affection. TJ and Devon accosted them next.

“Are you kidding me?!” TJ fumed. “You had to do this tonight?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ryan asked.

“We had a bet going,” Devon clarified. “And Mark won.”

“And he isn’t even here! Goddammit, now I owe him fifty bucks. Why couldn’t you wait until tomorrow? Then my week started!”

Shane raised his eyebrows. “A bet? About what?”

“You idiots, duh!” TJ said, throwing his hands in the air. “Every damn week for, what, two months has it been, Devon?”

“Yup.”

“TWO MONTHS we have been waiting for you two chucklefucks to admit to us you were together. We all chose weeks for when you’d tell us and the winner would get $50 each from the other two,” TJ explained. “And Mark won and he wasn’t even here.”

“I can’t tell if that’s hilarious or a complete violation of our friendship. I guess both can be true,” Shane said as he settled into a chair at their table.

Ryan also grabbed a chair and motioned for Shane to prop his ankle up in his lap, which he did. “How’d you even know?”

“Ryan, please. My job is literally to watch you guys. I know you got together the weekend after that Post-Mortem where you got in that big fight,” TJ said.

“Wow, good call,” Shane said, impressed. “How did we give ourselves away?”

Devon grinned. “You held hands under the desk during breaks when we were filming a True Crime episode.”

“I can’t believe you guys didn’t say anything,” Ryan observed.

“I almost did, but I was afraid you’d freak out. Then Mark suggested the bet, and, well, here we are,” TJ said. “I cannot believe I was so close! Like four more hours and I would have won.”

“Here, Teej, let me buy you a drink, take the sting off.”

“Oh, I _insist_ you buy me a drink,” he said, pointing a stern finger at Shane.

They all laughed but were soon interrupted by the rest of their friends, dying to know the details of how everyone’s favorite Ghoul Boys got together. Curly was the most smug about it.

“I knew it!” he clapped at Ryan. “I knew you’d pull a Flo Nightingale and fall in love with your patient!”

“I did not! I liked him way before that!”

“Please,” he waved a dismissive hand. “You saw this poor giraffe-man in need of assistance and nursed both his ankle and heart back to health. It’s straight out of a telenovela!”

“Well, you’re wrong. I’ve been into him since December,” Ryan said triumphantly. “So, take your Nightingale theory and shove it.”

“Wait,” Shane interrupted, mind reeling a bit. “You never told me that. December? Really?”

Ryan’s grin faded, suddenly embarrassed. “Uh, yeah. I got kinda jealous at the holiday party when you hooked up with that accountant guy. Took me awhile to figure out why, but yeah.”

“Wow. I should have hooked up with old what’s-his-name sooner if that’s all it took to get you interested.”

“Why, how long were you into me?”

Shane hesitated, as this was maybe not a conversation to have in front of a dozen of their closest friends and coworkers. But he was also too high on publicly declaring his love for Ryan to care too much.

“Since always, baby.”

“Holy shit,” Ryan gasped, slack-jawed, while Curly “awww’d” in the most purposefully annoying voice known to man.

“Aw, this is so cute I could literally die.”

Ryan flicked Curly off with his right hand while he squeezed his left around Shane’s walking boot. “I had no idea.”

“ _I_ did,” TJ cut in, pointing at Shane. “Remember, I watch you guys. And Ryan is the only person in the world who can shock you into silence. It’s a pretty easy tell, there, bud.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Teej,” Shane lied, knowing exactly what he was talking about.

He rolled his eyes. “Three words: Indiana Jones outfit.”

Ryan leaned back in his chair with his arms linked behind his head and an annoyingly smug grin on his face. “Yeah, even _I_ could tell you were into that.”

Shane crossed his arms. “Well, excuse me for being blindsided by your refusal to button up button-up shirts.”

“Whatever, you would still like it,” Ryan said, giving Shane a rather pointed look.

On a hunch, Shane texted him.

_You don't still have that outfit do you?_

Ryan took one glance at his phone and just smirked in Shane's direction.

Holy shit.

“Wow, you guys, this has been so much fun but the ol’ ankle is starting to act up, it really hurts and I gotta elevate it, you know how it is,” Shane babbled as he slapped a wad of cash on the table. “That should cover our drinks. Thanks so much for being so supportive, we love you!”

Ignoring the catcalls at their backs, Shane and Ryan hobbled their way out of the bar. Shane had his cane in his left hand and Ryan's hand in his right, dragging him as swiftly as his still-recovering leg would allow.

“Wow, I would have kept up my shitty treasure hunting career if I knew you were this into it,” Ryan observed once they were outside and waiting on their Lyft.

“You weren't shitty at it.”

“Uh, I'm pretty sure you have to find treasure to be a not-shitty treasure hunter.”

Shane squeezed his hand. “Not all treasures are tangible things.”

“Wait, is this one of those ‘maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way’ things?”

“Basically, but, you know, in the boyfriend way.”

Ryan thought for a moment. “Maybe the real treasure were the boners we gave each other along the way?”

Shane laughed so hard he snorted. “Such a poet, you are.”

“Shut up, Shane,” he demanded with a grin.

He did shut up, leaning down to kiss him, his left leg popping up slightly so he didn’t have to put as much weight on it. He knew Ryan would catch him, and he did, grabbing ahold of Shane’s waist with his sturdy hands.

That night in the Nevada ER, Shane knew his life was going to change dramatically. He just had no idea that was going to be for the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see? told you!
> 
> anyway, thank you for reading! I'm on [tumblr](https://drunkkenobi.tumblr.com) if you're into that but I'm old and stubborn so it's not a BFU-only blog.


End file.
